


A Long Shadow Cast

by Quercusrobur



Series: Sun In My Sky [4]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Torchwood
Genre: Angst, Established Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Far Future, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Episode: s06e11 The God Complex, Temporary Character Death - Jack Harkness, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-12-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 22:16:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 64,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16458029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Quercusrobur/pseuds/Quercusrobur
Summary: After The God Complex, the Doctor spends two hundred years running. In the wake of a disastrous attempt to escape his fate, he leaves Jack to his well earned rest, but is in no state to be alone himself. Big Finish has The Lives of Captain Jack; here are some of his many, many deaths.Sequel toFire the Crucible.





	1. Not a bad option for people who stay dead

**Author's Note:**

> _In no particular order, this story is:_   
>  _Some of the past Jack had to set aside at the beginning of Crucible;_   
>  _A collection of vignettes spanning more than a year of the Doctor's life, and a great many more years of Jack's;_   
>  _A little bit of healing and a lot of growing up;_   
>  _Some of Jack's worst days, from the Doctor's perspective;_   
>  _An asynchronous love story;_   
>  _An attempt to characterise an inconceivably long life._   
>    
>  _It's turned out almost as long as Crucible; each chapter is its own story, and some are fairly long. Explicit rating is only for Chapter 10; the rest is PG, though includes non-graphic violence and deaths. Occasionally fluffy._

Once he starts looking closely, the Doctor can see places along Jack's timeline where the deaths come frequent, where the Fact of his existence is in constant doubt. The two thousand years he spent buried under Cardiff are a terrifying instability, and the Doctor wants nothing so much as to rescue him from that - but he can't, because he didn't. It's right there, written into the universe.

This is going to be tricky, and that's a conservative estimate.

Much smaller disturbances, then, and further along Jack's timeline, because he knows for a fact that the first time he saw Jack in this body was the first time Jack saw him as well. He picks one out, hoping the somewhat vague relative temporal coordinates will be enough for the TARDIS to find a real place and time in space, but pauses before throwing the lever to go. This won’t be his Jack. Although if he is thinking of it like that… he is not yet, quite, his Jack’s Doctor, in that case. He would consider getting used to it, but what would be the point, circumstances being what they are? Instead he will do the best he can to alleviate the worst of Jack's eternal burden, the atonement he needs for the only one of his great mistakes he can even begin to redress.

He doesn't remember what Jack will be expecting, himself nearly a century ago. Of course he remembers the events, but he couldn't accurately reproduce his reactions to events, his response to Jack; so he will just have to go on from where he is. He rubs his hands together, lips twitching up in amusement. “I thought he knew me too well. Better than I knew myself sometimes. But he had a sneak preview!” Amused and tolerant, the TARDIS gives him a mental nudge. “Of course, we'll go. I'm _planning_ , not, not dallying. I don't want him to think…” _that I'm desperate_. But this Jack won't know him well enough to see how badly he is managing on his own. It has been only a day since he left his Jack to his well earned rest. It will be fine, he will be fine, and he will make sure that Jack is fine. He throws the lever.

After they rematerialise, he pokes his head out the door cautiously; after all who knows what may be about if Jack is in dire straights. But it's just empty space. A stellar system, to be sure, but there is nothing near enough or big enough to take up more than - he holds his thumb out - two degrees of the field of view. He is starting to feel that prickling between his shoulders, under his skin, that heralds the reassertion of the Fact of Jack, so he must be here somewhere.

He leans out, looking to the sides of the TARDIS, then, with a sigh, crouches down. Lying flat on his belly, the Doctor edges forward until he can peer around the bottom. It is occasionally terribly inconvenient having a single door facing a single direction, when there are all these other options. He has had some overly amused companions on occasion, when his habit of parking in cupboards has gone slightly awry. Which is neither here nor there; he can see a planet now, well receded in its orbit and trailing a cloud of moons. He pushes himself out a little further and finally sees the slowly tumbling body, close behind the TARDIS.

“You materialised facing the wrong direction again, old girl,” he says to her. “You never do that for River.” She doesn’t dignify that with a response, as usual when he twits her about her preference for River. Shaking his head, he pulls himself back inside and stands up, then heads off to find a rope.

After digging one out of a compartment at the back of the console room - and what in Time a tartan blanket, half a ham sandwich, a shirt, and a transchthonic spectrometer are doing in there with it he doesn't know - he ties one end to the railing, the other about his waist, and steps out the doors. Jack is close enough that he needn't worry about boring things like environment. Pushing off, he swings himself feet first below the TARDIS, with enough spin that he can grab onto the bottom corner, brace his feet on the edge, and kick off. The prickling feeling has grown to a terrible itch, Time pulling in on itself, convulsing around the still center, and he realises it has been more than two months since Jack last revived in his presence. So much has changed in his perception of Time, perception of Jack, perception of his burning brightness, he doesn't even know if it's a good idea to be touching him when it happens, but it's too late to change course, too late -!

Seconds after he reaches Jack, wraps his legs tight around him and reaches for the rope to reel them in, he is blinded and a wave of vertigo hits him. Jack convulses, heaves a great gasping breath, the first successful one for quite a while, and grabs for him even before consciously recognising him. “Doctor?” He sounds baffled. “What’s going on?”

Then one hand hooks around the Doctor’s arm, and the other around his neck, and the Doctor has never been so glad of his tendency to forget to eat as the skin contact, after a day without and on top of the vertigo, sends him retching helplessly, curling into a fœtal ball of misery. It breaks the contact which is another difficult transition, and he can’t take any more, can’t possibly; he curls up tighter, forces out, “Don’t touch, sorry, don’t touch me, I’m sorry Jack,” and closes his eyes against the nausea. There is nothing to orientate on, in space.

He feels Jack carefully disengage from him, then there is tugging on the rope as Jack pulls himself back to the TARDIS, carrying the Doctor back with him. Jack drags him in by the rope, not touching him at all; not his Jack, not his Jack. Have to say something. “It’ll pass,” he manages, lying on the cool floor, listening to the TARDIS, letting gravity sort out his various physical systems and elapsed time dampen his reaction. After a few minutes he cracks open his eyes. Jack is sitting against the doors, arms resting on drawn up knees, regarding him worriedly. He carefully reaches out a hand and pats Jack’s leg. “Skin contact is the trouble, that’s all, it will pass soon. And I apparently shouldn’t be touching you when you revive. Jack. Are you alright?”

Not-quite-his Captain huffs out a breath, not quite a laugh. “Peachy. Space burial, I expect, not a bad option for people who stay dead. I’ll be leaving a bad review for that ship. What are you doing here, Doc?”

The Doctor glares at him, affronted. “What does it look like I’m doing here? Saving you a lot of mileage on your search for a gravity well, I suppose. Did you have one in mind or just any old thing?” Did he just…? He did. This is _not his Jack_ , and he is probably going to take him seriously and _leave_. Indeed, Jack is climbing to his feet, resigned, not surprised.

“I was thinking Lhovis-Lovi next. I’m fresh out of time travel at the moment, so I was just going to get there when I get there, but if you’re willing I think the 32nd century was a sort of golden age there. That would be a nice change.” He looks deeply tired, the Doctor notices now, and he regrets his hasty words even more. Looking closer, his clothing, singed and torn, suggests he was traveling as ship’s crew, and there's no sign of his vortex manipulator; but it is the lack of cuffs at all that looks unusual to the Doctor, and that's not a fact he's about to mention.

“You can stay,” he says, raising his head from the floor. “I really don’t mind. I didn’t mean it.”

Jack shakes his head and smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “No, you’re right, it’s probably too soon. I’m sorry about this,” he gestures at the Doctor, still curled on the floor. “I’ll go clean up though, if that’s alright. Can I get you anything?”

“No, no. Go ahead,” the Doctor says. “No hurry.” Maybe he’ll change his mind. “I’ll just, ah…” He thumps his head back onto the floor as Jack leaves the console room. “Useless, pathetic, incapable, inconsiderate, _rude_ excuse for a Time Lord!” The TARDIS seems to agree, for the moment, which honestly, if she had just got the doors around the right way… “And you! Don't be smug, it's insufferable in time ships. Next time, just materialise around him, none of this daring rescue business.”

-+-+-+-

 


	2. Remarkably unpleasant

Arms braced on the console, he is staring at the lever again. This time, no touching Jack whilst he revives; that's where he went wrong. Just stay well back, and everything will be fine. He has had tea to settle his nerves, and then another cup, but still no food; taken a shower and changed his clothes. Checking his reflection once more, yes, he looks far more put together than he feels.

“Alright, just get him out of there, this time. Whatever is going on, it can’t be good.” Jack’s timeline is less flickery, this time, deaths at rather longer intervals, but it has still been an extended period of trouble. No need to prolong it further. The Doctor takes a deep breath, straightens up, and pulls the lever.

This time the thud of materialisation is accompanied by the much more disturbing sound of a body falling limply to the floor. “Jack!?” the Doctor yelps, whirls around, and only barely keeps control of his stomach at the sight of his lover sprawled on the floor, hands tied behind him, blood leaking sluggishly from a vast assortment of wounds, face darkened, one side broken and swollen. He is, nonetheless, burning brightly in the Doctor’s time sense; he’s alive, breath whistling harshly through a throat badly bruised and abraded. Horrified, the Doctor realises he has been _hanged_.

And then probably left there to be hanged again. And again, and again.

“Gods, _Jack_.” Sod caution. He rushes to him, falls to his knees, reaches a hand out and then isn’t sure what to do with it. “Jack,” he says again, urgently. “You’re safe, you’re in the TARDIS, I’ll take care of you.”

The eye that is not swollen shut opens a sliver, and his lips move, but the only word the Doctor can make out is the last: “- mercy.” Then the labored breathing falls silent, Jack’s body goes slack, and once again his bright guiding star is extinguished; not at his hand but still here in his presence, and it’s, it’s _not_ more than he can bear because Jack has no choice and for once in his life he is going to get it right. He takes a deep breath, and another, as his eyes wander over the tormented body of his Captain. He has had words carved into him, _witch_ and _devil_ and someone appears to have tried for _abomination_ but run out of room, along with the other injuries. Trying to recover his equilibrium, the Doctor looks away, but it doesn't help; it feels like the images are burned onto his retinas. He desperately wants to go back and try again, whisk Jack away before any of this happens, but it is too late now. All he can do is what they always do, keep going on. Carefully gathering up his Captain's body, he stands and makes his way to the infirmary.

After cutting him free of the rope and the filthy remnants of clothing, the Doctor sets a basin of warm water by his side and gently washes him. There is nothing more he can reasonably do; Jack will heal when he revives, physically at least. About halfway through, the Doctor's skin starts crawling, so he hurries the rest and is just through dumping the basin when his dimmed sun reignites. He doubles over, breath knocked out of him; it still burns, nearly blinding, but much better for a little distance.

Jack, on the other hand… He is just lying still now, breathing steadily, not looking around nor trying to sit up, no comments, nothing. After taking a minute to recover, the Doctor ventures, “Jack?” and Jack startles, lifting his head.

“Doc?” He’s turning his head carefully, and the Doctor edges around until he is visible. “I thought you’d be… further away.”

“No further than I have to be, I promise,” he says sadly. “I just need to… acclimate. You don’t have any plans this time, do you?” He is not going to make _that_ mistake again.

Jack huffs a rueful laugh. “Not at all, aside from away from there.” He sits up, pressing fingertips gingerly to eye, cheekbone, neck. “That was… remarkably unpleasant.” Looking apprehensive, he swallows, then as no pain attends the action he relaxes into relief, head falling to his hands, breath hitching.

His own discomfort fading to irrelevance in the face of Jack's distress, the Doctor goes to him, wraps his arms around gently, one hand straying to his matted hair. After an initial reluctance, to which he offers no resistance, Jack suffers his head to be tugged to the Doctor’s chest and sits there, cradled in his arms, hopefully taking some comfort in the promise of temporary sanctuary. When his silent sobs have ceased, and his breath is coming deep and regular again, the Doctor loosens his arms and Jack sits up.

“Sorry,” he says, inexplicably.

“For what? I'm sorry I didn't come sooner. Once I get there, you know, I can't… try again.” Why he rarely goes back; the perpetual fear of arriving too late. He sets his hand against Jack's cheek, but instead of turning into it Jack cuts him a confused glance and he realises abruptly that he has forgotten this is not his Jack.

“For going all wibbley. I'm alright.”

“I know you're alright.” Dropping his hand from Jack's face, he turns toward the door, tugging lightly at Jack's arm before releasing that hand too. He breathes through the emptiness of letting go, face averted, but feels more settled for having had the contact. What a muddle. “Let's get you to bed, Captain.”

Jack doesn't argue when the Doctor leads him to his own bedroom; watching him sleep, still and silent, in the Doctor's bed is too much to consider subjecting himself to yet.

As days pass and Jack begins to recover, withdrawn silence turning to his usual chatter, it becomes obvious that he expects nothing of the Doctor but to be put off somewhere convenient. It is a torment to have him so near and so out of reach, that deep stability the Doctor needs more with every passing hour _right there_ but he can’t just take it, can he; all the casual touches the older Jack had come to offer without thinking completely missing, flirting gradually increasing but mostly reflex. The Doctor is getting more practice than he would like with these sick-making transitions, because he can’t help reaching out for Jack whenever he can, even knowing it won’t last long. More practice than his Jack would ever force upon him; it’s probably good for him. Character building, as if he had ever needed more character.

It is baffling, and frustrating, and he has no idea what to do about it.

He is standing in the corridor outside the console room one day, knocking his forehead against the wall, when Jack nearly stumbles into him, and it is suddenly too much; this may not be his Jack but he is still _Jack_ , and he may be recently traumatised but he rarely turns down a good distraction.

“Doc?” Jack yelps as his back hits the wall; then the Doctor takes any further words away as his mouth comes down on Jack's, tongue impatiently seeking entrance. He's yanking Jack's shirt from his trousers, hands roaming under to the heat of his smooth and unmarred skin, finally anchored, finally steady, firmly returned to close orbit of his beloved sun. The relief is more than enough to drown out the passing vertigo. Jack’s eyes are wide in surprise and he can’t seem to decide where to put his hands. After a wonderful minute of reacquainting himself with the taste and heat and feel of Jack, the Doctor feels those hands on his shoulders, pushing him away. He breaks off with a gasp, suddenly afraid he has gone too far again.

But Jack doesn’t look upset. “What do you need?” he asks; instead he is concerned.

“You, Jack,” the Doctor breathes, past his natural reticence but also mostly past complete sentences. “Just you. Please.”

Jack, thankfully, is only past words in the face of sex when he allows himself to be. “I'm not rejecting you,” he says carefully, and the Doctor is pathetically glad for the reassurance, “But I need to ask: you're not under the influence of anything, or sick, or otherwise impaired?”

He briefly considers being concerned that this is apparently wildly out of character for him, but instead just shakes his head. “Nothing like that. Just, some things happened, I can't… please, Jack, if you're willing.”

A grin breaks across Jack's face and he chuckles. “For you, Doc? Anytime.” His hands move to the Doctor's chest, sliding beneath his braces, a strangely intimate touch. The Doctor's hands are still on Jack's back, under his shirt, and he pulls their hips together just as his eye is caught by a flash of tongue as Jack wets his lips. He leans forward, unable to resist, but Jack's mouth twists into a thoughtful grimace. “No breath restriction. Maybe not my neck at all, for now.”

“Nothing on your neck,” the Doctor echoes, nodding encouragingly. “We'll be gentle with each other.”

The man who is becoming his Captain smiles, a bare twitch of his lips but his eyes are so warm. “I'd like that,” he admits, and leans in to meet the Doctor's lips in a soft, slow kiss that nonetheless sets him achingly on fire.

-+-+-+-

Leaving is the hardest part, but of course they can't stay together. Seeing these younger versions of his lover is wonderful but difficult, knowing something of what lies ahead, and the Doctor is determined to make the most of his remaining time. Once things are starting to feel comfortable he knows it is time to move on.

He is staring at his teacup in the kitchen one morning when Jack surprises him. “It's time I was on my way, Doctor.” The Doctor looks up, eyes wide, to see Jack considering him from across the table, a wistful smile curving his lips. “You've got whatever was bothering you mostly sorted, and I don't want to overstay my welcome.” He chuckles at whatever expression is on the Doctor's face, surprise and indignation and denial, and says, “You think I can't tell? I know you better than that.”

It isn't as true as it will be, but it is true enough, so he nods. “You do. And I’m glad of it. You’ll see me again, Jack.”

He can see the shadow of passing centuries beginning in Jack’s eyes as he drops the smile. “Promise, or prophesy?”

“Both,” the Doctor admits, “but mostly promise. I won’t go without saying goodbye.” He stretches a hand across the table, and Jack catches it between his, curling his fingers around to hold on; the only show of emotion he makes. His face is expressionless, hiding whatever pain is underneath.

“I’ll hold you to that.”

-+-+-+-

 


	3. These degenerate days of rampant automation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _[There's a Thread You Follow](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17284856) takes place before this chapter, for Jack._

After that, the Doctor sleeps, and eats, and works on the TARDIS, and takes a break for the few days he can stand. He would like to go _anywhere_ , but Jack’s absence renders the outside universe a madhouse, leaves him lost in the chaos of unordered, uncentered timelines. He did try, briefly, just to not feel so trapped, but fled back to the safety of the TARDIS and the Vortex within minutes. With Jack he would be fine, but he is not sure he can take seeing Jack in some horrifying state again, just yet. The memory of the last one is still etched on the inside of his eyelids.

“It's no good just sitting here worrying about it,” he says with a sigh, leaning his head back against the railing and looking up at the shining ceiling of the console room. “Not my style at all. It can't all be like that, can it? We had a great time at Casarilli, when was Casarilli for him?” But there is no simple answer to that question. The TARDIS can tell him when it was for _Casarilli_ , but he already knows that; after all, he was there. Jack's timeline is not easy to correlate with the linear time of the universe without actually witnessing it.

Perhaps he should caution him against too much time travel. Then again, best skip it; he would rightfully laugh at the Doctor.

He straightens his bowtie purposefully, shrugs his shoulders and realises he hasn’t bothered with his jacket yet today; what happens when one is effectively under house arrest. “Ow! I didn’t mean it like that; you’re wonderful company.” Nasty shock his old girl has when she’s offended. “Nevermind. On to the next, eh?” She sings reassurance to him; whatever the difficulties, it’s better than leaving Jack to endure on his own. Stepping up to the console, he gets on with it.

The next obvious disturbance in Jack’s timeline is different again; not flickering, not off and on again, simply off, something preventing the Fact even making the attempt. He suddenly remembers that Jack mentioned being encased in cement once, in an attempt to neutralise him, and wonders how this compares for difficulty. “ _Can_ you get him out of wherever he is, this time? This may be… complicated.” The TARDIS replies rather forcefully; he thinks it is approximately _watch me_. Or possibly _bite me_. Raising his hands, he steps back. “After you, my dear.”

They don’t fully materialise this time; instead there are two separate squishy thuds against the floor, and the Doctor closes his eyes. Then covers his face with his hands, pressing against his mouth, when that doesn’t seem adequate. But he is going to have to look. So much for hopes of something less awful. He draws in a reluctant breath, and the briny smell of saltwater reaches him halfway through. Dropping his hands, the Doctor opens his eyes and takes a resolute step around the console. There lies Jack, soaking wet, wearing some sort of uniform, in two pieces and quite, quite dead. Something bisected him through the chest, and presumably stayed there, preventing any recovery.

The Doctor turns and takes a step away without thinking, one arm wrapping tightly around himself, other hand finding its way back to his mouth. Then he turns back, feeling a duty to witness what his mistakes have wrought. “Oh, Jack,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry.” He takes a step closer, and another, until he can carefully pull Jack back together, align the pieces in hopes of easier remaking. Reaching out, he gently closes his eyes, vacant and staring, blue as the sea that swallowed him down.

Then, unable to do anything more, he steps away, sinks to the floor and tucks himself against the console where he will be visible to Jack when he revives, but doesn’t have to look at his body in the meanwhile. The Doctor waits, and thinks resolutely of anything else; comparative numerology, or the intricacies of holobiont interdependency, or transtemporal navigation, or how it is that Jack can stare at clouds for absolutely _hours_.

One hour and nine minutes later, he pulls his knees tighter against him and breathes stubbornly through the disorientating discontinuity in the world as Jack gasps back to life. Unlike last time, he is frantically trying to get words out.

“The city, did we miss the city? Doctor?” Jack spots him just as he is turning to look, and tries to jackknife himself into a sitting position, only to groan in pain and fall back. “Ow, fuck! What happened?”

“I don't know,” the Doctor says, unwilling to come closer quite yet; unwilling to _look_ closer, though he knows his lover's body is back in one piece. “We just picked you out. You were underwater, and something, something… you were cut in half.” He gestures mid-chest at himself, and pretends he doesn't feel at all hysterical.

Jack plucks at his jacket curiously, and the misaligned bottom half pulls away entirely from the top half. “Neat.” The Doctor chokes. “Hey.” Looking concerned, Jack reaches out toward him. “I'm alright. I didn't even feel it, I was out before we hit. Just wake up with some leftover pain, sometimes. Hey, come here.” When the Doctor hesitates, Jack says, “Or is it too soon?” and starts to pull his hand back. Quicker than he can think about it, the Doctor’s hand snaps out and grabs onto Jack’s. He’s not letting go, he’s _never_ letting go, never again. Still feeling reluctant to get close to Jack’s blazing brightness this soon after revival, he moves just enough that they are not stretched uncomfortably.

Wincing as he rolls to his side, Jack smiles up at him. “Underwater is good. Means we managed to scuttle the plane in the ocean, didn’t hit Chennai.”

“You’re a pilot again?”

“Space planes. Still need hotshot pilots, even in these degenerate days of rampant automation.” He grins, voice deadpan, quoting something. “I’m flying for the Indian Space Agency. Or, I was,” he adds, face falling. “Someone buggered the autopilot, had to take her down. Guess I’m dead now. Another life gone.”

Regretting the question already, the Doctor asks “Was there anyone else aboard?”

“My copilot, yeah.” He's solemn, now. “Riva Yamato. She was with me to the end. Or, I guess that's the other way around.” After a pause, he gives the Doctor a half smile. “Thanks for the extraction. Waking up would have been awkward.”

Whilst he has been speaking, the Doctor has shifted forward, nearly unconsciously, and now finds himself within an easy arm's reach of Jack, who is watching him curiously. “Yes,” he offers, as distraction. “Waking up in the morgue is dreadful.” His Captain cocks an eyebrow questioningly at him. “Well, done it, haven't I.”

“Not that I've seen, but that doesn't count for much. What are you doing, Doctor?”

It's a good question, actually; his left arm is half outstretched, reaching for the place on Jack's chest where his clothes fall open, torn completely apart as they were. He is already holding Jack's hand, already anchored, but that steady flame is calling him; to what purpose he doesn't know. “Nothing,” he says, “nothing. Help you up?”

“Sure. I need a shower,” Jack says with a wink. This _must_ be after Casarilli for him; he has learned that the Doctor doesn’t require some overwhelming need to indulge in Jack’s favorite distraction. When Jack heads toward the Doctor’s bedroom, he nearly protests but realises he couldn’t explain it; the shower is better anyway, so he goes along, for now. He is too quiet, and he's holding too tightly to Jack's hand, but seeing him… like that, was more than he was prepared for. He is feeling fractured again, and his Captain isn’t here to put him back together.

As Jack works his way out of his awkwardly modified uniform, the Doctor notices he has his vortex manipulator back. “Space hopper couldn’t save you?” Jack eyes him consideringly, but doesn’t respond immediately. Instead he removes the rest of the ruined uniform and bins it, then takes off the vortex manipulator, pushes a couple buttons, and holds it under the water in the sink for a minute.

“It's waterproof,” he answers the Doctor’s look. “But I’ll be sad if I have to get a new strap. Had it perfectly broken in.” He disassembles it and sets it atop a towel on the counter when he finishes. “And no,” he says as he turns on the shower. “It couldn’t save me.” He’s not looking at the Doctor. “Something knocked me out whilst we were still trying to scuttle her. I wasn’t about to bail before I knew we wouldn’t take out ten thousand people in Chennai. What’s wrong with you?” He says it conversationally, without judgement, but very clearly following on from the thought of leaving people to their preventable deaths. Not waiting for the Doctor’s answer, he steps into the shower.

_I don’t know_ , the Doctor doesn’t say, although it would be easiest. _I miss you_ , he also doesn’t say; it wouldn’t make sense. “I can’t bear to see you like that,” he eventually settles on.

“Then why do you keep doing it?” Jack is washing his hair enthusiastically, but obviously listening for the Doctor’s answer. “Live long enough, you’re bound to encounter just about anything imaginable; for me that includes a lot of things it’s going to hurt you to see.”

“That’s why.”

Jack cranes his head back around the glass. “Because it hurts you?” He’s incredulous, edging toward angry. “Doctor -”

“No, no.” The Doctor cuts him off, waving his hands. That’s not where he wants this conversation going; he is not going to inflict his guilt on this Jack either. “Because you’ll encounter it. I can choose to be there for you, but you haven’t any choice in the matter.”

“Don't get me wrong, Doc, I appreciate it.” He turns off the water, comes out and grabs a towel. “But the thing is,” it comes out muffled, “it doesn't just hurt you to see me dead, it hurts you to be around me.” He chuckles. “Could give a guy a complex.” Although he is careful to keep his voice light, Jack is still not looking at the Doctor.

Of course they would have to have this conversation at some point. Jack is a lot of things, but unobservant isn't one of them; selfish, petty, occasionally cruel, and very willing to kick people when they're down, but not unobservant. But he’s not up to it right now. Part of him wants to flee, and part of him wants to push Jack up against the wall right here and never let go; part of him wants Jack on his knees, and part of him… part of him is just now noticing, as he stares at his naked lover’s whole, unmarked chest, that he managed three days on his own, and if he can stand being without Jack for three days at a time…

He doesn’t know what shows on his face, but Jack’s eyes go wide; the Doctor whirls away, flees from the bathroom, can’t make it all the way out of the bedroom. He stands there, paralysed by his conflicting desires, and hears Jack come out, pause, then rummage in the wardrobe.

“What are you afraid of?” he asks, as he pulls on the clothes he’s picked out. Hearing no reply, he saunters into the Doctor’s field of view and repeats the question. “What are you afraid of?” His eyes are piercing, that clear deep blue exposing all the cracks in the Doctor’s facade, flaying him down to the bone.

“Myself,” the Doctor replies, voice breaking, compelled to truth.

Jack grins. “You’ve come to the right place, then. I’m not.”

There is something twisting in his gut, anxious and horrified, as he says, “You should be,” and steps forward, hands coming up to grasp Jack’s arms, push him step by step until his back is to the wall.

But Jack is, as he claimed, fearless. “You always say that,” he points out, and leans forward until the Doctor can feel his breath hot against his lips. He gives in to the least destructive temptation then, hoping it will stave off the others, and presses his body to Jack’s, mouth opening to catch at the trail of that eternal flame, so close, _so close_. The moment stretches impossibly, and he doesn’t reach for the fire, he doesn’t, and doesn’t again, and he can _keep making that choice_ for as long as he has to -! And then Jack’s tongue is sliding hot and wet and sweet against his, invading his mouth and he forgets everything else as he moans wantonly and grinds his hips against his Captain, who makes a surprised noise. _Not_ his Captain, not the man who can take charge of him in his desperation, and he pulls away unsteadily, steps back entirely. “ _Now_ what?” Jack groans, out of breath, eyes gone dark, as he lets his head roll back to rest against the wall.

Taking a breath, and then another, the Doctor attempts to recollect himself. Dangerous here, with this younger Jack; if he loses control, there is no one to stop him. “Now what?” he echoes coldly. “Is that what this is, you're looking for sex and my _sensibilities_ are getting in your way?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “It looked to me like we were both looking for distraction. Best way I know to get your mind off things.”

“What do you need distraction from?” It's cruel, and he doesn't care right now. “You didn't feel a thing, fell asleep in your plane and woke up in the TARDIS.”

Half of Jack’s face scrunches up as he stares at the Doctor in frustrated bafflement. “What do you _want_ from me? Are you _looking_ for a fight?”

Drawing himself up, the Doctor regards Jack from under his brows with all the hauteur he can summon. “Don't be ridiculous. I know you're only recently descended from the trees but do try to keep that ape brain of yours in check. We're not all as evolutionarily hobbled by hormones as you humans.” He watches Jack's jaw tighten, his hands clench into fists, and wonders how well Jack does know him. “There’s more to life than fighting and fucking, for some of us.”

Jack's jaw drops open. “You're the one -” Then he cuts himself off, and the Doctor can hear his teeth click closed. Jack stares at him for a moment, then says, “Fine. Have it your way. Probably do you some good.” Without further warning, he launches a punch at the Doctor's jaw. Letting it make contact, the Doctor turns with it and pulls Jack's arm to send him stumbling across the room, where he catches himself and whirls around.

Meeting his challenging look with a dark smile of his own, the Doctor steps forward deliberately. “Let's see what you've got, Captain.”

Raising his chin, Jack gives him a predatory grin. “Just full of surprises, aren’t you. I can take you, Time Lord.” He launches himself forward without reserve and they both go down, limbs tangled, and scuffle on the floor for a minute before the Doctor rolls away. He tries to pin Jack before he gets himself sorted out, but gets a knee to the diaphragm for his trouble and backs off again. After a few more minutes Jack manages to land a kick around the Doctor’s side that probably would have bruised a kidney if he’d been human and tries to press his advantage, but has cause to regret his incaution when the Doctor dislocates his shoulder in return. “Thrice-damned cheating alien _bastard_ ,” Jack yells in shocked pain. “Put it back! I'm not done with you yet.”

“I won't speculate on your parentage,” the Doctor says, very relieved to find both his words and actions back under control. “Lie down.” He sits down, braces his foot under Jack's arm and pulls carefully.

“Just my ancestry,” Jack groans, then exhales in relief as his shoulder settles back into place. “Thanks. Where were we?” He sits up, but the fight has served its purpose; the Doctor no longer feels as if he will fall apart at any moment.

“I believe you were making an ill-advised and incompetent attempt to _take me_.” Jack laughs outright at that, and the Doctor can’t quite keep his pleasure at the uninhibited sound off his face. Seeing it, Jack cocks an eyebrow at him, and then there is no further talk of fighting because they are both laughing instead.

Jack is shaking his head. “What the hell was that about, Doctor?”

He feels the corners of his mouth turn up, and tucks his head down in a reflexive hiding gesture. Jack isn't fooled, though. “I was looking for a fight,” the Doctor admits.

Rubbing his shoulder gingerly, Jack shakes his head again in mild disbelief. “You owe me.”

“Don't whinge, Captain, it isn't becoming.”

“I'll have you know I was voted Prettiest Pout in Seven Systems on Epsilon Volantis five years running, and I _know_ I've still got it because I haven't even been back for the fifth yet.” The Doctor is not about to admit that his pout does look extremely fetching, so instead he hops to his feet and offers a hand to Jack.

He pulls his lover close and he comes willingly; tucking his face against Jack’s neck, the Doctor basks in the heat of him, the steady warmth of the fire that will burn there forever. “I keep coming back,” he says finally, serious again. “Can that be enough, for now?” No declarations, no greater promises he can make. Jack’s arms tighten around him.

“It’s enough,” he replies, accepting as always; then he hesitates. The Doctor makes an inquiring noise. “It’s more than I ever expected,” Jack says softly. A pained breath escapes the Time Lord this time; he makes no reply, but holds on tight.

-+-+-+-

 


	4. Keep coming back

Terrified of what he might do, the Doctor had dropped Jack off almost immediately. He had aimed for the Rift in Cardiff, since they were in the neighborhood, but it was no longer there and the Bay was in any case threatening the Plas. Disconcerting, but Jack had just shrugged a shoulder and walked out the door, turning to salute the Doctor with a sad smile. _See you sometime_ , he had said, and the Doctor had nodded, and fled.

The work of a moment to consign himself safely back to the time vortex, then he sinks into a seat, staring at his hands. “Bit of a joke, rescuing him,” he says despondently. “Who’s going to rescue him from me?” Hands coming up to meet his lowered head, he sits there, listening to the TARDIS sing of comfort, and rest, and time.

Eventually, unable to shake either the fear or the need, he comes to the conclusion that if Jack saved them both once, he can do it again - so long as he understands the problem. Reaching well past the unmistakable horror he himself had visited upon his Captain, the Doctor skips further up his timeline to a flickery instability he hopes is something easy. At the very least it oughtn’t to involve multiple pieces of Jack. “Have at it, old girl,” he says as he throws the lever. Patting the console, he waits, hopeful and trepidatious, to see what they catch this time.

When Jack appears, whole in body but with clothing burnt and torn past recognition, the Doctor guesses space again. There is nothing Jack needs at the moment so he goes to the doors to find out, but upon opening them flinches and pulls his head back immediately. The TARDIS has materialized in a dense debris field, and there is distinct danger of putting an eye out. He returns and perches on the jumpseat near Jack; it’s not a long wait.

On the heels of his first breath, Jack looks around wild-eyed, then launches himself upright. “No! _No!_ ” In a panicked frenzy he opens his vortex manipulator and starts pushing buttons.

“Jack?” The Doctor is baffled.

“No!” he says again, holding his hand up briefly but emphatically. “Don't say _anything_. Don't open the box. I'm going back, I can still save some of them.”

“You can't, Jack, you can't do that -”

Teeth bared, Jack grits out, “Watch me!” and disappears.

“- from inside the TARDIS, how? What? _What?_ ” After a moment he transfers his stare to the TARDIS's central column. “You,” he accuses testily, “let him do that. Well, go get him. Again.” She does, and this time when Jack revives the Doctor is standing over him, glaring down.

“Go away,” he says, and curls up on his side facing away from the Doctor. “I can't deal with you right now.”

It hurts much more than he would have expected. “If that's the kind of thanks I get maybe I should just leave you to it.” He's lashing out, it is completely unfair being angry at a man who has just lost his whole world _again_ , and he should apologise, he really should.

“I keep telling you that,” Jack mutters, and the Doctor is shocked from his thoughts.

“ _What?_ ”

“Finally admitting you never listen, huh? Or…” He pauses, and looks back up at the Doctor. “No, you're out of order.” He sighs wearily. “It's bad enough… If you're determined to do this, Doctor, at least don't skip around.”

“I…” The Doctor is at a loss. “I can't… you weren't… I needed…” He has come too far, maybe it has been so long Jack doesn't even remember, doesn't understand what he needs.

The pensive frown on his Captain's face gradually sharpens into something intent, focused; the Doctor might name it hope if not for the amorphous disquiet gaining traction in his chest, if not for the way Jack seems to be fighting himself, if not for the vibrating edge to it that makes movement feel dangerous. Before either of them break their standoff, however, some realisation washes over Jack, dropping him back to unthreatening, weary despair. “ _Finally_ ,” he says with dismal relief. “Sensible of me, in the circumstances… Thank the gods for small mercies.” He sits up and pushes a few buttons at his wrist, then climbs to his feet. “The TARDIS has coordinates. Go there. _Don't_ come back here.” He stabs at a few more buttons, brushes past the Doctor who is still trying to understand, opens the doors, and steps out into space, pulling them closed after him and cutting off the Doctor's shocked exclamation.

The Doctor stands there for a long time after that, staring dumbfounded at the doors.

-+-+-+-

They materialise on a planet this time. The Doctor pulls his long green coat on, shaking his arms to settle it; straightens his bowtie and pushes his hair back. Frowns at his reflection. He is determined not to look as rattled as he feels. The deep stillness of Jack’s Fixed Point is nearby, looming immense in his senses, drawing him to it like a gravity well; all he needs to do is start moving.

He is not sure what another rejection would do to him, but surely Jack would not have sent him here to be broken. He takes a step, trusting.

Outside it is a bright, clear day. The sky is blue, the vegetation is largely green, but it’s not Earth; notably, there is a second tiny sun in the sky. They have landed in an open area, field, lawn, or large garden he doesn’t know, near a small house outside which Jack is waiting for him, presumably having heard the TARDIS. He is wearing a long blue coat of his own, and looking more settled than the Doctor has seen him in a long time. He continues on his inexorable path.

“Took you long enough,” Jack says, which for all the Doctor knows is a perfectly sensible greeting. “Doctor.”

“Captain. You’ll want to make note of these coordinates, I suppose.”

“Gotcha covered.” Jack winks at him. “Care to come in? I wasn’t expecting anyone, but it’s not awful.”

It's not awful at all, if fairly small; Jack seems to live alone here, and he is so accustomed to cramped quarters and wandering that he tends to keep things minimal and tidy. Once they are settled at the kitchen table with coffee, coats hung behind the door, Jack looks at him questioningly and says, “No offense, Doc, but you look terrible.”

The Doctor looks down at himself inadvertently. “Do I? I tried not to,” then realises that gives away far more than he had meant to.

One corner of Jack's mouth turns up. “ _Did_ you. You can't fool me by dressing up, you know. Though I appreciate the effort.” He eyes the Doctor appraisingly, and the Doctor doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, reach out for the fire or flee from the terrifying reality of his favourite Fact; does none of them, holding himself reined in so tightly he is sure it shows. “How long has it been for you, since you left me on Ophicche?”

“A month,” he says. “Or a bit less.” Evasiveness is ingrained habit, at this point; Jack knows he could tell him to the minute if he chose. “I need… I,” how is he even to explain, he had been hoping Jack would simply _know_. “I know I was supposed to be trying to, to be on my own, but it's _hard_ , I can’t even go anywhere, Jack, time is - my _head_ is all wrong. It's alright when you're around, but… And then I went three days without you and I, I stopped myself but you _wouldn't_ have. You weren't my Captain yet.” Jack is waiting patiently for him; he swallows nervously and spins his coffee cup between his hands. “Please, tell me you can, can… _please_ don't turn me away.”

“I won't turn you away,” Jack reassures him immediately, and he sags in relief. “I'll never turn you away.” Which renews a part of his misery, because no matter how sincerely meant he knows it for a lie. “Whatever you need, we'll find a way. I suggest a bed first, though.” He laughs at the Doctor's suspicious look. “I'd wager you haven't slept in days.” With a sideways nod the Doctor concedes the point, and rises to follow his Captain.

“It's to be a rest cure, then?” he asks, amused despite himself.

“Better than a poke in the eye. You want me to take charge of you whilst you fight with yourself; I can't fight your battles for you but I can do that. And I'm _very_ good at distraction.” Jack gestures the Doctor through a doorway with a flourish. “Bed's big and comfy. Hope you don't mind sharing.”

He pauses just inside. “Not at all, but… I’m not safe, Jack, that’s why I’m here.” Finally a simple, concise truth. But Jack just shakes his head.

“You’re not going to kill me.” The Doctor flinches, wonders how Jack can be sure when he himself is not; but that's why he skipped ahead, isn't it? “See?” Arms wrap around him then, strong and steady, and his Captain is there, solid against his back, holding him up, warming him through. “You just need a safe place to sort yourself out, and someone you trust to carry the rest whilst you do it.” Jack kisses the side of the Doctor's neck, just below his ear, and he tilts his head just a tiny, deniable bit to allow better access. “That's here,” his Captain whispers, and kisses him again. “That's me. You _are_ safe, here. I'll take care of you.”

Finally the Doctor allows himself to begin to relax, to remember the deep trust born of fire and pain, to believe that he might be granted this respite to continue healing. He closes his eyes and leans against Jack, basking in the heat, even his hands eventually hanging loose and limp at his sides as they almost never do. Jack continues holding him without a word of protest. “I've just dropped in,” the Doctor says softly, “and ruined all your plans for the day. I'm sorry, Jack, but thank you.”

“For the week, at least, I'm sure,” Jack rumbles against his back, amused. “But I hadn't any plans; this is my own rest cure, here. Not as restful as stasis, and I'm not solitary by nature, but it's good to get away sometimes.”

“It sounds dreadfully boring,” the Doctor sighs, smile tugging at his lips, still making no effort to hold himself up.

Jack nudges him back upright gently. “I'm sure you'll regret stopping by any moment now.” He kisses the Doctor under his ear once more and presses palms to his chest, then hooks his fingers in the Doctor's braces and pulls them slowly over his shoulders and down his arms, raking fingertips the whole way. Since Jack started with arms underneath the Doctor's, it hints at a restraining hold by halfway down and he exhales sharply, shocked by his own reaction. _Keep me safe_. “Jack -”

“Shh,” Jack hushes him, letting the braces fall. “Sleep first. I'll be here.”

“But I -”

“No,” he says, and the Doctor is momentarily afraid. “Later,” he adds, reassuringly. “Come on.” He pushes the Doctor to the bed, settles him on the edge, and drops to one knee. “I love this part.” Sitting back on his foot, he slips a hand under the Doctor's trouser leg and raises a booted foot to his bent knee between them. Watching him undo laces, loosening each cross one at a time with deliberate care, caressing the Doctor’s leg beneath his trousers as he works, the Doctor can feel his heartsrate speed up; his mouth goes dry as Jack gives him a heated glance. “Oh,” Jack says, a note of pleased surprise in his voice. “I forgot how _responsive_ you were. Are.” He slowly slides the boot off the Doctor’s foot, followed by the sock, then kisses his ankle and sets that foot back on the floor, reaches for the other.

The Doctor is squirming, trousers uncomfortably tight, by the time Jack is finished with his left foot, thoughts and worries fled.

“Now,” Jack says, and the Doctor watches him hopefully. “Sleep.” His lips twitch at the dismayed expression on his lover’s face, and the corners of his eyes crinkle. “Later, I said. You came here for me to take care of you, and that’s what I’m doing. You’ll see.”

“How you expect me to sleep like this…” the Doctor grumbles, and Jack _winks_ at him, the cheeky ape.

“You’re a big boy, you’ll figure something out. Try the top two drawers if you need something to wear; haven’t got pajamas as such.” He waves at a dresser near the bed, then stands and bends to kiss the Doctor on the forehead. “Rest, anwylyd.” He leaves the room, pulling the door closed behind him.

Safe in the care of his Captain, secure in the knowledge that he won’t be allowed to hurt anyone or destroy any timelines today, the Doctor, eventually, sleeps.

When he awakes, Jack continues in his infuriating course. It is an artfully, excruciatingly, slow seduction. The looks, the touches, Jack’s laughing eyes as he dodges away when the Doctor can’t stand it anymore and tries to hold on. After two days of this, overcome by frustration, the Doctor catches him outside the house and pins him to the wall, fingers pressing into his shoulders, kisses him fiercely; but Jack is passive under him, and that’s not what he _wants_ , he wants him _doing something_.

“What are you _waiting for?_ ” the Doctor cries, baffled and desperate. But Jack just smiles at him as he slips away.

He considers leaving, but not for long. He considers ultimatums, but can predict just how well that would work on his Captain.

He finally considers, hours later, _letting Jack be in control_.

Seeing the obvious has never been his strong suit, to be fair, and Jack doesn’t seem impatient, so he hasn’t failed some kind of test. His Captain has probably been enjoying the whole thing, in fact, slowly wearing him down until he can actually follow through on his stated purpose for being here. Knows him better than he knows himself, again; he would be annoyed if he weren’t so relieved to have finally found his way out of the maze he had built himself. Thereafter, as Jack continues his campaign of leisurely seduction, the Doctor finds himself sinking into a kind of waiting stillness, a state of mind he has always found difficult to achieve on his own.

That evening, as he stands outside feeling the planet turn, watching the stars appear, Jack stops in front of him without a word, watches him curiously for a minute. The Doctor looks back at him, a smile on his lips, but makes no move. “Lovely view you have here,” he comments, returning his gaze to the sky.

“Yes,” Jack agrees, voice husky, and pulls the Doctor’s hands from his pockets, interlacing their fingers. Then he steps forward and twists the Doctor’s hands behind his back, trapping them there, the Doctor now firmly encircled in his lover’s arms, anchored deep in time. He shivers at the feeling and lets his eyes fall closed, face still raised to the sky. “ _Now_ ,” Jack says, and kisses the hollow of his throat, licks a wet line up to his chin that burns cool in the breeze; the Doctor arches into him as a breathless moan escapes him. “That’s more like it. It’s a relief, isn’t it,” he nudges the Doctor’s face down, breath hot against his sensitised skin, “to lay down the standard, just for a little while?” Captures his mouth, tongue curling against the Doctor’s, and finally he can have a taste of that fire, that eternal spark under Jack’s skin, that he himself can never contain again. If indeed he ever had; never be consumed by it again, more like, but he can reach out, and warm himself at its side. At the moment, with no further ambitions than what Jack plans for him, he can feel nothing but grateful contentment for the trade.

-+-+-+-

The sense of calm certainty doesn't last, of course. By lunch the next day he is restless again. Sitting at the table with Jack, he picks at his food.

“You're a terrible houseguest,” Jack says fondly, leaning back in his chair.

“And you're a terrible host,” the Doctor snipes, more irritated than he has any conceivable right to be and cross with himself for being so. “Sex doesn't actually fix anything.”

“You keep telling me that, but you keep coming back for more.” Jack grins unrepentantly as the Doctor sets his fork down too hard. “But, sure it does. You weren't afraid or doubting yourself for at least two days, and you haven't been worrying you'll accidentally kill me. You can't tell me a break from that doesn't help. You carry far too much, Doctor, and this task you've set yourself is mad, but if it's what you need to do I can't stop you.” Suddenly fleeing seems like a reasonable option again, but Jack doesn't seem interested in discussing his atonement; he goes on. “What I can do is convince you that you aren't a danger to me, or yourself, or the universe.”

“How?” the Doctor asks, sour irritation turned bitter as he considers his own threat level. “I've always been a danger to myself.” He pushes his plate away, appetite well and truly gone.

Jack chuckles. “Fair point. To me, then, and to the universe thereby. We'll get there.”

Suddenly out of patience, the Doctor snaps, “You aren't taking this seriously!” Standing, he throws his napkin to the table and stalks away, out of the house; Jack watches him go in silence.

He goes back to the TARDIS; she lets him in, but refuses to go anywhere. “I see how it is,” he accuses. “Poor old mad Doctor, can't be trusted on his own, makes a hash of things no matter what he does. What do they say, death follows in his footsteps? Or was it chaos? Destruction?” He is yelling now, might as well be into the Void because the TARDIS has borne his tempers for centuries and never minded. “Strand him in the back of beyond with the one man he can't kill…” Bracing hands on the railing, he hangs his head. “I've seen so much, we've seen so much, you and I, and I'm so tired, but there's so much more out there. So much left to do. How do I keep ending up here?” There's no answer, except the steady comfort and companionship his TARDIS always offers.

He stubbornly doesn't come out for four days. Jack doesn't come in. Finally it becomes unbearable, the constant fight to keep himself away from that steady burning still point; he would last much longer, he is sure, if Jack were not so close, if he could be out and about and _doing_ things. He was never meant to deal with an extended recovery period, from anything. On to the next, that’s how he works. This time, _the next_ appears to be conceding defeat, and returning to his Captain; it stings more than he wants to admit. Why, after all, should he let anyone have so much power over him?

In his own time, then, he tidies himself up, straightens his bowtie with no subtext whatsoever and casually strolls from his TARDIS; his because he is a bloody Time Lord. Making his way into the house, he finds Jack cooking. “My, aren't we _domestic_.”

“Hmm,” Jack agrees, apparently unsurprised by his appearance. He turns, then tilts his head to the side quizzically. “Like an old married couple,” he says, infuriatingly, as he gives the Doctor a slow surveying look, all the way down and back up. Then he shakes his head. “That doesn't work on me.”

“ _What?_ ”

Jack gives him a humorless half smile. “You're trying to come over all, _I am the Doctor, last of the Time Lords, no higher authority,_ etcetera. It doesn't work on me, the TARDIS doesn't care, and there's no one else here. You're trying to convince yourself. Why?”

Wind abruptly knocked out of his sails, the Doctor says angrily, “You are infuriating and I hate you,” and throws himself into a chair to sulk.

Turning back to his cooking, Jack says, “You're being childish.”

“I've always been childish! Have you met me?” He drums his fingers on the table, swings his foot; sitting still is entirely beyond him right now. Jack is so close but he's not _helping_ , the Doctor will have to close the distance himself and his battered pride is still putting up a fight. He watches Jack silently, then finally gives in. “This needing you, it's wrong. It's undignified.”

But Jack persists in being infuriating. “You're always undignified, have you met you?” The Doctor stands and steps toward him angrily, but Jack grabs him by the arms, swings him around, and traps him against the counter. His mouth is opening to protest when Jack unexpectedly says, “I'm sorry. But I don't think you'll believe me any other way.”

“What -” he manages, before everything in him is suddenly quailing in horror, clawing backward in terrified reflex but he’s _trapped_ , he can’t escape! Jack is calling up the fire in him to the surface, suffusing his skin, pushing it toward him, it’s burning brighter and hotter and after these months without the Doctor can feel it will consume him utterly, rush through his synapses and burn out his mind forever with one last sight of infinite glory, and he _doesn’t want it!_ He can't - he _won’t_ \- he pushes against it with everything he has, slamming it back into Jack where it belongs, where it’s safe, where it will remain an eternal torment to him but at least the universe will be safe from people like the Doctor.

He gasps as Jack slumps against him, catches him reflexively. He’s not dead, which was no sure thing at all from this stunt, the self-sacrificing _fool_. Staggering a bit, he drags his Captain to the next room and deposits him on the sofa, settling himself in a comfortable chair to wait and recover himself. Convincing, maybe; acceptable, not by a long shot.

“Hey,” Jack says, blinking his eyes, smiling tiredly. “See?”

“I see that you’re still a noble _idiot_ ,” the Doctor replies harshly. “That was stupid, and foolish, and reckless and _horrible_ and,” he swallows, suddenly feeling hollowed out, “and you were willing to die for it. Jack…”

“I’ve already apologised,” he points out. “I’m not going to again. If you won’t take it when it’s freely offered, after four days when you’re nearly ready to jump me and angry as well, when do you imagine you might?” Sitting up, he stretches, but already looks fully recovered.

The Doctor, on the other hand, needs a break from this rest cure. He slumps down, elbows on knees, face in his hands, and just breathes; through the queasiness and vertigo, through the reawakened hollowness inside, through the weight of Jack’s faith in him, through the choking burden of his own guilt. He had rejected it out of simple reflex, sheer visceral fear, no thought of consequences nor any proper horror at the prospect of Jack’s death until after the fact; he can find no virtue in that. After a minute he feels the easier weight of Jack’s hand on his shoulder, warm through his shirt.

“Come eat,” he says. “It’s just plain fish.” Then he is gone, leaving the Doctor to sort himself out and follow.

Jack has set their places next to each other, and as the Doctor sits down he sets his left hand on the back of the Doctor’s neck without comment, anchoring him, warming him; he leaves it there through the meal. After the washing up he leads the Doctor to bed and stays with him there, holding him tight and safe until eventually his overwhelmed mind quiets and he sleeps.

-+-+-+-

“Let’s go somewhere,” the Doctor suggests, the next day. “I can’t stand being planetbound. I was going to take you to Askenflatt Major; best coffee in the known universe. Fancy a trip?”

Jack smiles tolerantly at him. “You already have, but we can go again if you like.”

“Ah.” Halted in his spin toward the door, the Doctor's hands fall dejectedly; then they rise again. “Soleron Six! They've got the best - well, maybe not.” Jack is laughing at him now.

“Let's skip anything food-related, shall we? Unless you're sure you like it.” He rolls his eyes. “Like taking a toddler to haute cuisine. The looks I'd get.” Shuddering theatrically, he makes no real attempt to dodge the swat the Doctor aims at him, then grins. “Please sir, may I have another?”

Scowling, the Time Lord considers the absolutely insufferable human he has inexplicably taken as a lover. “No,” he denies grumpily. Then, course decided, he smiles. “But I'll be back.”

“You're going without me?” Jack looks surprised, the grin falling away immediately.

“You've convinced me,” the Doctor replies, “provisionally. I am feeling better. It's been a week; we've done all the things we usually do.” Fight, fuck, even a near-death experience. “Might as well get back to… what I was doing.”

“Ah.” Jack looks away. “I'd hoped… but you said you'll come back.” He takes a breath and convinces his face into something more closely resembling a cheerful send-off. The Doctor suddenly wonders just when in his quickly winding down timeline this Jack corresponds to; he is too afraid to ask, not that Jack would answer. “You're not really a terrible houseguest.”

“And you don't resemble in the slightest a terrible host,” the Doctor says, voice catching a bit. He hesitates, then closes the distance between them and wraps his arms around his Captain, presses his face to his shoulder, trying to convey his gratitude for all Jack is and does, for his acceptance of the Doctor's inconstant nature, for his trust and faith that weigh so heavily sometimes, and other times buoy him up when nothing else can.

“Hey,” Jack says gently, comfortingly. “Just come back, alright? I'm not done with you yet.” One hand is running up and down the Doctor's back, the other gently holding the back of his head.

Remembering a similar sentiment in a very different situation, recent to him but far in this Jack's past, the Doctor lets out a choked laugh. “You never are.”

“Never will be. Go on, then.” Jack kisses him briefly, just long enough to leave him wanting more, then pushes him away, smiling. “If you're going where I think you're going next, have fun. You have a lot of hard days ahead of you, but they're not all bad.” The Doctor considers this as he leaves, provisionally hopeful.

-+-+-+-

 

_Baby I’ve been here before_  
_I know this room, I've walked this floor_  
_I used to live alone before I knew you_  
_I've seen your flag on the marble arch_  
_Love is not a victory march_  
_It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_  
  
_(- Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen)_

 


	5. Always takes it out of me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _The missing adventure may be found as[Don't Stand Too Close (Don't Hide From Me)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17461514)._

The Doctor sits, head buried in hands, in the console room; the less said about _that_ little adventure the better. Only a degenerate reprobate like Jack would think… honestly, he'll never be able to show his face, or, well, anything else, at Fordering Station as long as he lives, not that he wants to! He still has his trousers at least, which is better than _some people he could name_. And his jacket, with all his bits and bobs, thank goodness. As for the rest… _have fun_ , indeed. It may have been… bracing. And he will concede interesting, certainly. And, well, it certainly _had been_ going quite well before… No, that's leading to all sorts of tangents, had better just proceed with the usual plan; on to the next one.

After he is properly dressed again, and lucky thing he keeps a few pairs of boots in rotation because breaking in a new pair is miserable, he realises he is feeling much more sanguine about the question of what sort of trouble will Jack be in today. If there is the occasional adventure to look forward to - not that he's _looking forward_ to another one like that, exactly - it will all be a great deal less awful.

This next disturbance in Jack's timeline is not long after the last. Some careless mischance, he shouldn't wonder, Jack is dangerously reckless sometimes.

“He'll grow out of it, I suppose,” he tells the TARDIS, who hums in agreement. Reckless or not she is terribly fond of him. “You're playing favorites. What about me, eh?” He is only half serious, but she responds with such a deep feeling of regard and belonging that he closes his eyes and just enjoys it for a moment. Then he pats the console tenderly. “Stole me away, haven't you. Let's go steal Jack back.” He throws the lever and waits.

Although there is nothing obviously wrong with him when he appears on the floor, aside from being dead, it is unexpectedly painful when the Doctor has so recently had the living man, his gloriously, enthusiastically living Captain, in his hands. This part can’t be _easy_ , he wouldn’t want it to be easy, but the pain is certainly renewed this time. Jack is looking a little worse for wear, shirt and loose short trousers his only clothing, but… as he steps closer and can see Jack’s other side he is horrified to find it coated in a thick, sticky wash of blood poured out from a surgically precise gash in his neck. Reflexively glancing away, he notices chafed and abraded rings around his lover's wrists and ankles, and the world sharpens and narrows as the fury he tries so hard to keep under control breaks free again.

Turning away, he directs, “Keep him safe,” then shrugs his shoulders to settle his jacket, stretches his neck, and straightens his bowtie with deliberate intent. “Vengeful,” he mutters as he stalks toward the door. “I’ll give you _vengeful_.”

Screwdriver in hand, he steps through the TARDIS’s doors into a scene of confused chaos, pulling them carefully closed behind him. Nearly immediately the two guards at the door have guns trained on him, but he pays them no mind, instead regarding the confused people in white coats without expression. A babble of voices greets him.

“See here, you can’t just -”

“Where did he _go?_ ”

“You’ve ruined it! He was just about to -”

“Who the devil are you?”

With mock cheer, the Doctor exclaims, “First sensible question! Well done to the gentleman on the right.” Cheer falling away in an instant, he pins the fellow with a baleful glare. “And good guess. I’m the Doctor, and that should worry you very, _very_ much. Who is in charge here?”

“That would be… Dr Prak, erm, sir?” he replies, gesturing vaguely toward the door. At least he has enough backbone to stay upright; wouldn’t necessarily expect it. The others have stopped yelling at the Doctor, and the unfortunate spokesperson is watching him warily. “Where -”

Cutting him off, the Doctor tries again. “Who is in charge,” he repeats, with careful emphasis, pointing to the floor, “ _here?_ ”

After exchanging a few looks, one of them edges forward. “I'm in charge of this subject; Dr -” but the Doctor cuts her off as well, uninterested in more than a focus for his ire.

“You aren't anymore, and I suggest in the strongest terms you never try to be again.”

“This is invaluable research -”

“This is _murder!_ ” he roars, pinning her with his fiercest glare. “Thought you'd found yourself something special, I suppose? Some new healing factor, fountain of youth perhaps? The miracle man, knock him down and watch him get back up again! Here you are, diligently taking measurements, trying out new _hypotheses_ ,” he throws the word out viciously and advances on them, leaning forward, brandishing his screwdriver. “He's not an _experiment_ , he's a _person!_ Did you think no one would come for him?”

The scientists, busybodies, murderers, whatever they are, fall back before him, but the one in charge isn't completely cowed yet. “We're not monsters, we keep him sedated,” she says, as if that excuses anything.

“No doubt after making sure it has no effect on your results,” the Doctor comments bitterly, and feels no satisfaction at their silence. Drawing himself up, he says, “I will ensure you regret it, if you try again. _He_ is under my protection, and _you_ ,” he raises his arm and aims his screwdriver at the ceiling, having already disabled the guns under cover of words, “are out of a job.” Sparks rain down from the ceiling as he turns the screwdriver on, and people are frantically ripping earpieces from their ears as communication turns to static. “Run, or not, I don’t care, but the Shadow Proclamation will be looking into your dubious operation _quite soon_.”

One of the armed ones steps forward, reaching for him, showing a dedication to duty he might admire in someone admirable, and says, “Sir, I think you’d better -”

“Come with you? I don’t think so. Things to do.” He is fiddling with the screwdriver as he speaks, then quickly aims it at the console in the corner. “You’ll find, I believe, that I haven’t been here, and you’ll probably want to keep it that way. Things have a tendency to get,” he narrows his eyes and pulls the fury in closer, and the guard steps back, “ _complicated_ , once I’m involved.”

Spinning on his heel, he marches back to the TARDIS. He pauses in the doorway, and turns back to meet the eyes of the head murderer. “You’ve wasted your time anyway,” he adds, smiling coldly. “He's one of a kind.”

Slamming the doors behind him, the Doctor stomps toward the console, nearly there before he realises Jack is sitting in the far jumpseat, watching him. “Jack!” he cries, rather shocked that he hadn't noticed him revive. Come to think of it the sheer fury seems to have carried him safely through his venture out into the universe alone, as well. Its purpose served, he tries to rein it in, hide it safely back under the layers of himself he prefers. “Are you…” _Alright_ seems like an inane question, and clearly he is alive.

“My hero,” Jack says, smile barely touching his lips but warming his eyes. It could have been sarcastic but he sounds so exhausted it isn't at all. The Doctor takes in the way he is slumped in the chair, head laid back, arms limp, and the anger is lost under a flood of concern. He sends the TARDIS into the Vortex, then goes to Jack.

“What's wrong? I mean…” he gestures vaguely.

“Exsanguination,” Jack explains laconically. “Always takes it out of me.” He snorts, tiredly; his gallows humor again, but the Doctor, as usual, can't find it funny. “Watched you.” He moves his fingers without lifting his hand to indicate the scanner screen.

“Ah,” the Doctor says, somewhat embarrassed. “Well. Let's get you cleaned up, shall we?” He shucks off his jacket, in consideration of the blood, pauses a moment and then pulls off his bowtie and starts unbuttoning his shirt as well. Jack gives him an attempt at a leer that is so far from his usual quality it just makes the Doctor want to feed him tea and tuck him into bed. “None of that,” he says fondly, and kisses him on the forehead instead. “All headed the same way.” Jack clearly can't take a shower by himself in this state.

He gets an arm around Jack, shoulder under his arm on the less bloody side, and they make their way slowly but without incident to the shower off Jack's room. The idea of laying him down to convalesce in the Doctor's bed still turns his stomach; he has had far too much of that, years too much of that. This Jack has yet to be broken by that terrible trial, and it occurs to the Doctor to hope that he doesn't take the lack of invitation to the Doctor's bed as rejection.

“You must go through more clothes,” the Doctor observes, as he bins the blood soaked ones.

Jack nods seriously. “Sometimes, I just skip them entirely.” Then he grins at the success of his gambit as the Doctor chokes and turns scarlet.

“Jaaack!” he wails, remembering the problem with running away from one adventure with Jack to another one _with Jack_ ; he set himself up for that. “Never bring it up again.”

Jack is nearly in stitches, hanging off him as he laughs. “You've _just_ come from Fordering, haven't you? Priceless!”

“I'll drop you,” the Doctor threatens halfheartedly.

“You won't.” Jack smiles at him, open trust on his face, and the Doctor can't deny him.

“I won't,” he agrees. “Wash.” He reaches to turn on the shower.

“Just want to get me into bed,” Jack says, not quite a mumble but close; he seems to have run out of energy and subsides thereafter.

As soon as the Doctor gets him settled in bed, he is out like the proverbial light; exsanguination may take it out of him but this seems excessive. Left without anything to distract him, the Doctor watches Jack for another minute, then remembers he has a call to make. And most likely a vortex manipulator to find, because it will be much easier to liberate from a panicked facility, of whatever sort, than from the Shadow Proclamation; can’t let them get their hands on anything one wants back. Not that that or anything else would stop him, if it were important enough. He has assembled armies before, and could do it again. But Jack is here, safe.

It isn’t hard to find, in the event; the TARDIS can trace it, it’s just usually easier and quicker for the Doctor to trace Jack, blazing steady at the centre of time. He walks right in, opens the locker, and walks back out with all Jack’s things, admittedly helped along by the TARDIS’s excellent timing. That burst of static over comms is a fantastically useful trick. He makes his phone call quickly, working off the last of his anger cutting off the neverending nosy questions, and returns to Jack.

He is sleeping restlessly, turning and mumbling; the Doctor quickly settles himself in the bed next to his lover in hopes of helping. He sits, pillows behind him, and lays his hand on Jack's head. Jack snuffles and rolls toward him, and soon he is sleeping peacefully, head pillowed on the Doctor's thigh, arm thrown across his legs, trapping him there.

Far from the worst place he's been trapped. The Doctor picks up his book and commences waiting, one hand warmed on Jack's bare shoulder; may as well anchor himself whilst he can. It is difficult with this younger Jack, who would find the level of casual contact the Doctor has grown used to, is trying to grow less used to, very out of character. He does, at least, seem to have come to accept that the Doctor regards him as more than a recurring annoyance, or a problem to fix. It had been genuinely painful, the first couple rescues, realising that was all he expected to be to the Doctor. How _had_ he managed to leave him like that, after three years together? Clearly not as fixed as he had thought. “Makes a hash of everything he touches,” he mutters bitterly; but Jack doesn't react and the TARDIS is not impressed with his self-pity. “Yes, you're right,” he answers her, “of course. Mistakes are for fixing, not dwelling on. When one can.”

After three hours and forty two minutes of sleep, Jack wakes with a start. He is halfway sat up before he realises where he is. Laying his head back down, he looks up at the Doctor. “You stayed.” He sounds like he is trying not to sound surprised.

“Sometimes I do,” the Doctor returns, gravely.

“For a little while.” Jack smiles sadly and looks away. Recalling a conversation that had nearly broken his Jack anew, the Doctor declines to pursue the topic further. “Oh!” Making to sit up again, Jack is caught by the hand on his shoulder. He looks surprised, but continues from where he is. “Doctor, they took -” Wordlessly, the Doctor holds out his vortex manipulator, and Jack sighs in relief. “ _Thank_ you.” He straps it back onto his wrist, and then seems content to lie still.

“Don't you need more sleep?” It wasn't nearly as long as he had been expecting.

“Not at the moment,” Jack replies. “Why, how long was I out?”

“Three hours, forty two minutes.”

Shrugging dismissively, Jack self-consciously shifts away from the Doctor, which, the Doctor suddenly realises, is not a preferred outcome at all. “Seems short, you’re right. But hell if I ever know what's going on with it.”

Curiosity getting the better of him, as usual, the Doctor asks, “How did you come to be there?”

Jack grimaces. “Couldn’t shake them after Fordering. Usually I can fake up a death - well, not _fake_ exactly, but you know - and throw people off the scent, but they were hard to convince after,” he smirks, briefly, “all that. A lot of people saw me looking surprisingly lively. I'm glad you found me. They were starting to get… more ambitious.”

He dreads the answer, but… “How long?”

“Hard to tell,” Jack doesn't answer. The Doctor gives him a stern look. “At least two months,” he says, unwillingly. Unable to reply, the Doctor instead slides down in the bed until he can pull Jack against him, warm and solid and burning bright. Still not sure what to do with this side of him, Jack both holds him tighter and tries to deflect. “Don't worry about it,” he says, “not nearly the worst I've had.” Which isn't reassuring in the slightest, but might be to the man Jack thinks he is, he supposes.

The man that, to be fair, he used to be. The man he probably still is, when it’s nothing he cares about; because he would happily have destroyed that place if he hadn’t had Jack to get back to, and he is not sure what that makes him.

“You don’t need to comfort me,” the Doctor says, trying to turn this back around the right way. “I was trying to comfort you.”

Jack smiles against his shoulder and stretches without moving away; rather like a very large cat, only more… _interesting_. “Mmm… it’s good to be free. I do better with distraction, usually.”

“Yes, I suppose I've noticed that,” the Doctor concedes. He hesitates, but if Jack is willing to be distracted, surely he can’t be faulted for pursuing the thought? No longer feeling himself a danger to his lover, still he craves the heat of his touch like nothing else; needs his steady presence as anodyne to the adrenaline letdown. The Doctor shifts a little closer, his breath stirring Jack's hair. “Me too.”

Pulling away, hopefully temporarily, and propping himself up on his elbow, Jack looks down at him thoughtfully. “It has seemed easier for you to… be near me, these last couple times, with everything going on. Is that what you need, then, just any sort of distraction at first?”

With Jack leant over him like this, the Doctor is caught between memory and this reality of not-his-Captain, suddenly very willing to provide a situation for Jack to control after so long in captivity. But Jack doesn't know that needy side of him yet. He swallows nervously. “It helps,” he manages, and Jack is staring at him now.

“What did I say…? Distraction? No,” he realises, “what you need. I swear, sometimes, Doctor, you talk right up until there’s important information to communicate. What do you need?” But the Doctor can’t answer any more than he can ever answer that question, the words just won’t come; he raises a hand to his lover’s chest instead, to feel Time’s heartbeat. “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” he says, words falling out easily again in relief at the familiar question, “quite alright, perfectly fine, everything is actually quite wonderful -” no, that was more than he'd meant to say. Jack’s eyebrows are climbing as he speaks.

“Doctor,” he interrupts gently, and the Doctor stops, takes a breath, tries to calm his racing hearts. “You're babbling. It's honestly rather adorable, but this is… different.” He can't explain, so he says nothing, lies still and silent under his lover's scrutiny. “Well,” Jack decides eventually, “take a chance sometimes, Harkness.” He grins, and carefully collects the Doctor's wrists in one hand, pressing them lightly together against his chest, warm and steady. “I wouldn't have expected it of you, Doc, but do you want to switch places for the day?”

Mouth gone dry, the Doctor nods, pliant under his lover’s hands as he raises the Doctor's wrists above his head. “Yes,” he says as well, because Jack has never asked silence of him, not that it would work; he is just too caught up right now to think of anything to say. “Jack. Captain.”

“Hmm,” Jack says, head tilted, curious smile spreading across his face. “Well, Captain's orders it is, then.”

-+-+-+-

 


	6. Don't even get to change my face

When the Doctor next attempts to retrieve Jack, there is a great grinding turbulence upon the TARDIS’s attempt to materialise; and then no Jack. He pops his head out the door, and finds the dingy wall of a back alley. “You’ve missed!” he calls back over his shoulder; the TARDIS sounds indignant. “Well he isn’t here.” Closing the door, he returns to the console to try again, but it doesn’t work any better and the turbulence is worse. They materialise, with significant difficulty, on a roof this time, which may be a natural environment for Jack but certainly doesn’t contain him.

Curious, the Doctor ventures out cautiously to gather information. He is not much enlightened when he returns; a man answering Jack’s description was here, weeks ago, involved with some disaster at the nearby mining operation. No one the Doctor can find is clear on the nature of the disturbance, and Jack is gone.

He eventually puts it down to vagaries of the time winds, or complications of timelines in some way, and moves on.

-+-+-+-

It is another retrieval from space, this time. When they materialize around him, Jack is undamaged, wearing a pressure suit of evidently limited utility. The Doctor removes his helmet so he will be more comfortable upon reviving, and then has only a few minutes to wait.

After the first great gasp of air, he lies still for a moment, then raises his head only to slam it back down to the floor. “Fuck,” he comments, succinctly. Still feeling queasy from the revival, the Doctor presses his hand to his mouth for a moment and doesn’t get up from the far jumpseat.

“What?” he asks, when Jack fails to elaborate.

Jack looks at him, and his expression falls from dismay to disgust; the Doctor is taken aback. “That’s just what I need.” Angry and sarcastic, Jack is glaring at him. “Someone who swoops in after all the hard work is done, ruins the only useful thing I’ve achieved, and then _gets sick looking at me_.”

“I was trying to prevent you drifting in space for the next few centuries!” the Doctor retorts defensively, stung.

“They're coming back for me! And you've probably destroyed all my work. Look outside, Doctor.” After glaring back at him for a moment longer, the Doctor gets up and does as he's bid. It's not empty space, but it's not an exciting view either; an empty cargo bay on a derelict ship, hull open to vacuum. The TARDIS is resting in a cargo net stretched across one corner.

“So someone will be looking for the ship,” he says, returning to Jack. “You were still dead. I don't like when you're dead.”

“You don't like when I'm alive, either,” his lover mutters, which is just, it's _beyond_ unfair.

“I keep coming back, Jack, what more do you want?” He gets up to pace. “No, it's not easy for me, but no, I'm not just going to leave you to some horrible fate for eternity, either. I'm sorry I wasn't there to help, but honestly with the amount of trouble you get into that would just amount to never _leaving_.”

“Which would, no doubt, be completely unbearable.”

Spinning around, the Doctor stares in disbelief at Jack, who is climbing to his feet for just long enough to fall into a seat. “What is wrong with you? You haven't been like this before.”

With a dry laugh, Jack rubs his face. “ _Like this_. Is that where we're at, recriminations of a dysfunctional relationship? Done that plenty of times…” He leans his head back. “Look, you can't just keep dropping in and expect me to be happy about it every time. I have a life, a hell of a lot of life, and things happen that aren't related to you whatsoever. And no, I'm not discussing it. I don't ask what you're up to, so you can take your nosy… _nose_ , and stick it somewhere else. I do my best when you need me, you come when I call occasionally,” which is news to the Doctor, but perhaps Jack thinks some of the rescues have been in response to something he's sent? “And things are fine. But don't think that you showing up is some sort of panacea for all the ills of the world. Especially not this time.”

Scowling at him, still feeling defensive, the Doctor asks, “What were you doing that I could ruin, dead in a derelict ship?”

“Not talking about it. Was there anything left in the cargo net besides us, or did the TARDIS atomise it all when she came in?”

“Crate of some sort, white. What is it?” The whole situation doesn't make any sense; there has to be something more he can get out of Jack, unusually grumpy or not.

“You are fucking _relentless_. Nothing. Leave it. You shouldn't be here.” Jack sighs and shakes his head tiredly. “What is this anyway, are you the self-appointed guardian of the unnatural order? Jack the Fact is failing to be alive, gotta go fix it again?” He sounds bitterly resentful now, and the Doctor is almost unbearably curious about what he's got himself mixed up in this time.

“No,” he says quickly, “well, sort of. No. But there are things you've had to go through that I could have prevented; I'm just trying to prevent some of them. I'm sorry I… got it wrong.” He hesitates, but can't help himself. “But what is -”

“Torchwood, alright?” Jack bursts out. “It's fucking Torchwood, now quit asking. Only way to get them to leave me alone, do what they need every once in a while. It's not _easy_ , I don't have a _time machine_ to hide out in. Just endless time. Don’t even get to change my face. Ugh,” he exclaims in disgust. Then he sits up, takes a deep breath; suddenly the anger is gone, giving way to a reluctant determination. “No point staying here. All you've accomplished is making me do all the dying again, because I need to be here when they come to get me, especially without… the rest of it.”

The idea of having forced yet more deaths upon his Captain _hurts_ , and Jack smiles grimly when he sees it hit home. “I could -” the Doctor starts, but Jack shakes his head, rejecting any possible attempt. “Fine, but I'm coming back for you if it takes too long.”

Relenting slightly, Jack concedes with a sideways nod. “Just… consider parking slightly further away, alright? This is really inconvenient.”

“I can do that. Though I reserve the right to use any means necessary to get you out of trouble. The TARDIS can handle most things, I expect, but do try not to get stuck in cement again.” He had meant it as a joke, but the only worse failures he has had in that regard have resulted in shots being fired at him; the dismay in Jack’s eyes opens into a dark pit of horror, the result of deaths upon deaths, that long ago time still awful enough to stand out starkly.

“Give me that,” Jack says roughly, standing to grab his helmet back. He shoves it on with no particular care and stands up. “Go away. Maybe next time you won’t be so useless.” After a slight hesitation, he marches resolutely toward the door. “Asphyxiation,” the Doctor hears him mutter as he goes past, “I hate asphyxiation.”

“Jack,” the Doctor calls, desperate to fix _something_ here. Jack pauses. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah,” he replies, “I know.” Then he steps out the doors, pulling them closed behind him.

-+-+-+-

Alone again, the Doctor is at a bit of a loss. He hasn't spent overlong considering Jack's perspective on his actions, but this is the second time he has been upset to see the Doctor; it's rough on the ego.

It can't last, this is before Ophicche for Jack and he was glad to see the Doctor then, but it is still something he needs to think about. He has been actively harmful this time, destroying _whatever_ it was Jack was here suffering for. And it’s not like him not to go nosing immediately into that crate, either, now that its guardian is dead again, or nearly so, but…

“We'll have to do better,” he tells the TARDIS, who sounds quite melancholy.

Still, he can’t face Jack again just yet. There are a great many other ways he might spend a bit of time, after all; time for a break. Perhaps he will even be able to go somewhere, now.

He ends up, after tea, looking for another bedroom instead. Sleeping alone in the bed where Jack lay dead for so long hasn't worked out at all, and the Doctor doesn't feel right continuing to use Jack's old room; it was alright for a while, but not a long-term solution. Jack should have his own space, particularly given recent evidence that he won't always be interested in sharing the Doctor's bed.

He wanders, pulling open doors at random just to see what the TARDIS will come up with, but nothing seems right. Archived versions of his bedroom feel like pretending; large beds remind him of Jack's absence; small beds feel like rejecting the possibility of him coming back. Too many of the colors remind him of worlds he has walked with Jack at his shoulder, or sometimes only whilst he lay dead; he isn't even sure he is remembering correctly which are which. In frustration the TARDIS offers him a hammock in a garden, which startles a laugh out of him.

“I am being a trial, dear, I’m sorry. I don’t know what I’m looking for at all, so how should you?” He leaves the garden only to find himself back in the console room, where a camp bed is set below the stairs, which isn't what he wants either. “Just a cupboard somewhere, couldn't you? Just somewhere to… hide away. If it should seem the sort of thing I’d like to do.” If Jack were angry with him again. Perhaps he might convince him to put off dying again, if he were to disappear for a while.

The next room she offers him is, indeed, barely more than a cupboard; there is a simple double bed, not too small nor overlarge, a small desk, a wardrobe, a door to a bathroom, and no space for anything else. The ceiling, as in the gardens, appears open to the sky, here the deep star-studded dark of space, and the walls are the stone of the Cloisters. A place to hide away, indeed. He would expect to find it claustrophobic, but instead it is soothing, for now.

“Thank you,” he says, patting the wall fondly. “This will do.”

-+-+-+-

 


	7. Not many who'd want that luck

He wanders, then, among the stars as he always has, gradually venturing out for longer times. He answers a mauve alert or two; stumbles upon an intriguing gem seller in the supposedly highly regulated markets of Ay Thera who, it turns out, does _not_ have a source for Metebilian crystals; forgets who he is briefly and has to choke down some of the best bouillabaisse in the known galaxy so as not to give unpardonable offense. Should have remembered what Jack said. When he makes it back to the TARDIS he attempts to drown out the horrid experience with fish fingers and custard, but ends up morosely contemplating his lack of Ponds and his inability to get drunk with anything easily available; he is clearly not fit to be on his own yet.

The Doctor sleeps, alone in his cupboard that doesn't resemble one in the slightest, and when he wakes he goes to find Jack again.

In deference to his request they neither materialize around him nor pick him out of where he is, but set down nearby. Jack’s timeline is on-again-off-again, in quick succession, but there is enough _on_ that the Doctor is not worried about being able to find him. Stepping out of the TARDIS, he finds himself in a vast, glowing night.

The sky is all he can see at first, clear and black and dominated by a galaxy of stars, splashed wildly across the sky from one horizon to the other. Brighter than a full moon on Earth and glowing with pale, rare colors, the starscape showcases an astonishingly clear diagram of galactic structure: bands of light where the stars are denser, nebulae, the blinding pinpricks of novae. Reluctantly, he looks away from the magnificent view. He is standing at the edge of a great, round bay, rocky cliffs rising bare paces behind him, rocky beach stretching out flat before him, and it is cold enough that even he notices.

Suddenly Jack’s bright beacon reignites, and the Doctor starts off to his left, following the cliffs, making his way toward it. It burns out again a bare five minutes later, which suggests Jack is having a remarkably awful time; regaining consciousness, time and time again, only to be nearly immediately killed, in what pain or circumstance the Doctor can’t, won’t, guess at. He continues walking, waiting for the next beacon to track, skirting around an outcropping of large rocks and then what looks like some sort of construction site, but when Jack revives twelve minutes later the Doctor has gone too far. Turning back, he runs, so as to get the best triangulation he can. He is well past Jack again by the time he gets back to the construction site, and it feels as if Jack is somewhat above him, but not nearly so much as to be on top of the cliffs. Turning toward the cliffs, he follows the trail of detritus.

The Doctor hears the quiet voices only slightly before the owners of them hear his boots crunching on the rocks. When he pops into the light of their tent, they are all looking toward him, but apparently were expecting someone different.

“Who are you?” one demands, standing, wide nostrils flaring. All three are short and yellowish, dressed in warm coats with hoods that throw most of their faces into shadow; they’re Passkrens, which means the planet is probably Hysskp.

“Hello! I’m the Doctor,” the Doctor says, friendly for now, hunching over a bit self-consciously; he feels much too tall all of a sudden. It is not helped by his head scraping the edge of the tent. He stifles his reaction as he feels Jack die again. “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Would look rather a lot like me, I expect, might go by a name like Jack?” Or not, who knows.

The three people exchange looks, and one offers, “He does look like him,” and sits back down. The first remains standing.

“Are you with SRS as well?” he asks.

“Ah, yes.” Fishing out his psychic paper, the Doctor shows it off briefly. He fiddles with it for a moment as if turning pages, then offers it again, carefully picturing Jack. “Here, looks like this?” The foreman nods. “Good. We’d like to get him back, you know.”

Bowing his head respectfully, he says, “My deepest condolences. I am the night foreman here, Ban Cenin Afel. We are doing our best to retrieve the Captain and his team but our expectation is that they are dead. They recovered many of the children, but another large cave-in blocked off the tunnels completely four days ago and we’ve had no indication that anyone remains alive inside.”

“No,” the Doctor says, categorically, shaking his head. “He’ll be alright, Foreman Afel, I just need to get to him as soon as possible. His team… may indeed be dead. What’s stopping you finding them?”

Pointing to what turns out to be a map on the table, the foreman sounds doubtful as he explains, “We’ve excavated the main tunnel to here, but found no one. His last known position was here,” he points to slightly within the cleared section. “There are, as well, a great many side tunnels, most quite small, but without any indication where to look it will take a lot of time to search. The rocks here carry enough metal to make scans unreliable.”

“Ah,” the Doctor says happily, clapping his hands together, “that’s where I come in. I can lead you to him. Might take a couple tries if the tunnels are all twisty, I suppose, but should speed up the process considerably.” Unable to stand still any longer, he takes off further into the excavation area. “Come on!”

“Dr Pond!” Foreman Afel calls after him - Dr _Pond_? Dodgy thing, psychic paper, suppose that’s what he gets for going all maudlin last night. “The day shift will be on in three hours; it’s only the three of us tonight. We are not enough to run the large machinery.”

“Then bring what you can!” he calls over his shoulder as he disappears into the tunnel.

He is hurrying in the debris-strewn tunnel, trying to get somewhere useful before Jack revives again; he can see well enough with the emergency lighting but it is still a help when, after a minute, someone turns the lights to working brightness. When Jack revives he is much closer; the Doctor breaks into a run, until finally he passes him just as he reaches the end of the cleared tunnel. If they had mapped the tunnels with sonar before the cave-in he could have pointed right to Jack's location; if they had been clear he could have used his screwdriver to do the mapping. As it is there are a couple of side tunnels marked on the unfortunately limited diagram he saw that might contain Jack, and he'll start digging with his hands if he has to -!

It doesn't come to that, the night crew arrives with a small excavator as well as picks and shovels shortly after, as the Doctor is leaning against the tunnel wall in reaction; his bright sun, extinguished again so close, so out of reach.

“He's… in pain,” he says to their questioning looks, letting them draw their own conclusions. When the first tunnel starts sloping downward, he calls them off and they start on the second, which goes better until they reach a block of stone too large to shift with the small excavator.

Keeping a pick and shovel, the Doctor sends the others back to wait for the day shift, due in half an hour. Jack has died eight more times whilst he's been trying to dig him out, and the Doctor is having real difficulty keeping his composure. He worries around the edges of the stone with his pick, finds that he can work though the top right corner, and goes at it with renewed vigor. Shortly after he feels Jack revive yet again, his pick breaks through and there is stale air on his face.

“Jack! Jack?” he calls, stomach clenching in fearful hope, and after a moment hears a breathless, anguished noise in return. “Alright, don't talk, don't move, don't… just, I'm here, Jack, I'll get you out, there's this big block of stone, I expect you're quite well aware of that actually, erm. They should be working on it within the hour, but I won't leave you, Jack.” He's babbling but what does it matter, Jack is in enormous pain and hopefully minimally conscious. “I… I've just been to Marseille, I was feeling quite full of myself, you know how I get - the planet Marseille, not the city - and believe me they take food seriously there -”

When Jack dies again he takes a deep breath, and another, and then sets to with his pick again, hoping to clear a larger hole. He alternates like this, telling Jack about his ridiculous adventures when he's alive, and carefully working away when he's not, until he sets his pick down, scrambles up, and finds he is able to fit not only his arm now but his head as well. Using his screwdriver as a makeshift torch, he looks around. Not a large space, it looks like Jack is between two blockages; partially under one, in fact, the Doctor can't see his legs at all, which probably accounts for a significant portion of the pain. The rest, and the dying, look very well explained by the spire of rock impaling Jack through his right lung.

And he _keeps coming back_ to this, body repaired enough to start back up but not to sustain life.

Sliding backwards, the Doctor falls down to his knees, arms wrapped tight around himself as he doubles over, fighting his stomach’s attempt to revolt. He feels Jack revive again, presses his hand to his mouth for a moment, then calls, “Jack, I'm still here, it's going to be alright, we'll get you out.” He can hear now the hum and grind of machinery proceeding down the tunnel behind him. “They're almost here, Jack.”

One of the workers comes running in. “Dr Pond, sir, you'll need to move out of the way.”

“I'm not leaving him!” the Doctor growls at her from the ground.

She looks rather nervous at that, hood blocking half her face notwithstanding. “Sir, there isn't room for the excavator to work if you're here.”

He climbs to his feet, suddenly possessed by an utterly stupid idea; Jack would never let him get away with it if he were… available. But that's the whole point, isn't it. Flashes a quick grin at the worker. “Wouldn't want to delay you.” Then he scrambles back up the fall of stone, reaches his arm through, his head, then with a good shove his shoulders are through and with very little time to think about it he is falling, not on Jack, _not on Jack!_ Twisting himself to the side he lands quite awkwardly, elbow and shoulder and he strikes his head on something but none of it is Jack. “Ow. I'm fine!” he calls, to the startled exclamation that follows him through. “Get on with it!” Then he pulls out his screwdriver and relights it, and sees Jack looking up at him.

His eyes are glazed with pain and he's lying completely still, barely breathing but unable to completely suppress the agonizing reflex. When he sees the Doctor looking at him his lips move silently: _Doctor_. And then again, and the Doctor thinks this time it's _damn fool_.

Smiling down at him, the Doctor says gently, “Fair enough. You can tell me all about it later. I won't leave you.” He cards his fingers through Jack's hair, which he is almost certain will cause no additional pain. It is shortly too loud to continue conversation, and then Jack is dead again, and the Doctor hopes they hurry. If he can just get the rock in his chest moved before he revives again…

It is the longest ten minutes he has ever waited, and it really is quite cold; he should have brought a hat. Finally, as the prickling under his skin is nearly painful, Time drawing together to reassert the Fact at the centre, the block of stone shifts outward and the Doctor throws his shoulder against the spire that was jammed under it. Telling himself sternly that it _doesn't matter_ how much damage he does to a corpse, he pushes with every bit of leverage he can find, and the spire finally falls to the side, tearing a gaping hole in Jack's chest and crushing his arm. “No, no, no!” He is frantically trying to shift the stone again, pull Jack's arm from its prison when he revives, first breath pained and shallow but drawn into whole lungs. The Doctor, exhausted and overwhelmed, falls to the ground and is sick.

Still in immense pain, breath coming in shallow pants, Jack is still Jack. “Not the most flattering greeting,” he manages to gasp out, “but you're a sight for sore eyes.”

With a quiet sob, the Doctor wipes his mouth on his shirt sleeve and then sits by Jack, catches up his uninjured left hand and holds it between his own. He kisses each knuckle carefully, reverently, uncharacteristically out of words. When the tunnel is cleared he walks beside Jack's stretcher, and never lets go.

-+-+-+-

Jack stays awake long enough to instruct the rescuers to continue excavating the tunnel he was found in, then smiles at the Doctor and passes out cold. After they are flown to a hospital in the nearby town, the Doctor manages to break them out with a combination of bluster, appeal to Jack's heroism, his own title of doctor, and, grudgingly, the evidence of Jack's unusually rapid healing. Eventually they clean and bind his shattered limbs and allow them to leave, taking them to a guesthouse on the edge of town. Jack sleeps through it all, and will probably continue to do so for days yet; the Doctor can do the arithmetic on the number of deaths he must have suffered better than anyone.

The rescuers find two more survivors in the tunnel, child and adult, far up where it reaches a more stable area of bedrock. Jack's team, of course, did have a sonic mapper to direct their choice after the cave-in of the main tunnel; neither of them made it far enough, though, along with the other two children. Jack is once again a captain without a crew. The Doctor wonders if he shouldn't take him away in the TARDIS and have done with it, disappear into the night as they have before; but as Jack pointed out, it is his life the Doctor keeps dropping in on. Best to wait for him to decide.

Disappearing into the night would be trivial here, mind; they are in the polar region and the sun is in the sky for only four hours a day at this time of year. But then again the night sky is stunningly beautiful, so it is hard to mind the imbalance.

After settling Jack in the guesthouse the Doctor begs a ride back to the bay he arrived in, called Starmouth because of the way it frames the galaxy in the night; the Passkrens are more than happy to help when he mentions medical supplies. He has been accepted as Jack’s caretaker, a strange situation to be sure, but Jack is being afforded every courtesy. He finds himself a hat and wanders at the far end of the bay for half an hour, putting down thoughts of leaving assiduously, staring up the cliffs, out to sea, then re-enters the TARDIS and returns to Jack.

Three days later, Jack awakes, mended in body but weak as a kitten. Although he has had saline packs to keep him hydrated the Doctor allows him only broth and water at first, until he is recovered enough to glare convincingly and demand real food, at which point a great relief sweeps through the Doctor. He sets the broth beside the bed with suddenly trembling hands and leans down to lay his head lightly on his lover's chest, needing to hear that constant heartbeat with an intensity he can barely breathe through.

Laying a hand against his cheek, watching him from eyes full to the brim with pain, Jack says quietly, “Thank you. If you hadn't come, no one would have survived.”

“I, was hoping -” _to be less useless_ , he doesn't say. Jack doesn't need his guilt; he had plenty of his own right now. “I'm so sorry about your team.”

“Part of the job.” He closes his eyes. “There's some that think I'm a bit of a lucky charm, but my luck is non-transferrable. Not many who'd want _that_ luck, anyway…” Looking a bit sick, he opens his eyes again, touches his right hand lightly to his chest.

Gladly taking the tangent, the Doctor asks, “What's the job? The foreman said SRS?” He picks his head up and sits back, not wanting Jack to feel confined in any way.

“Ah.” Jack’s lips curve into a small smile. “Captain Jakson Axton, Interplanetary Search, Rescue and Salvage, at your service.”

“Ever the dashing hero,” the Doctor says without thinking, and Jack's face falls again. “I'm sorry. I… let me get you some food.” He flees.

“You didn't make this,” Jack observes, between ravenous bites of the heavily spiced curry-like concoction the Doctor brings him.

Almost succeeding in keeping the disgust from his face, the Doctor shakes his head, waves his hand dismissively. “No, no. They send someone round twice a day to check on us, make sure they weren't negligent in releasing you from hospital, something like that. Not quite sure what to make of me, I think, but you're something of a local celebrity.”

“I hope you haven't _told_ them you think it's disgusting.”

Scowling, the Doctor grumbles, “I do get by on my own fairly well, for the most part.”

“You're an insensitive prat,” his lover says around a mouthful. “How should I know.” But his fond smile takes the sting out.

“I tell them you'll love it,” the Doctor admits, “and they’re happy and go away. Stop eating, you'll make yourself sick.” Taking the bowl and spoon from Jack, he sets it to the side and goes to turn the lights down so he can see the sky, but is interrupted by Jack's strained voice.

“Leave them on.” He almost says something completely unforgivable before remembering that Jack was alive for an unusually large portion of his recent ordeal; anoxic, hypothermic, but forced back to life nonetheless, again and again, to suffer in the darkness alone. Instead he returns to the bed and climbs in, tucking himself tight against his Captain but not trapping him in any way.

“Whatever you need,” he promises, fully cognizant of what Jack may require to purge the guilt, the feeling of failure that he understands so well, to help him reset after grief and trauma.

Sighing, Jack begins to relax against him. “I may take you up on that. When I'm feeling a little better. I hate when there's still recovering to do, after…”

Wondering if he really ought to admit any such thing, the Doctor mumbles, “I like taking care of you.” But Jack just turns toward him, kisses him briefly, and sets his head on the Doctor's shoulder.

“I know,” he says. “Thank you for saying it. It's not quite as bad, if you're around.”

-+-+-+-

“What the hell is on your head?”

Not Jack, too. “It’s a hat.” He attempts a breezy nonchalance. “Are you quite well?” Some sort of strange spasm has taken over Jack’s face. The Doctor pulls out his screwdriver and quickly scans him for any dangerous influence or previously unnoticed head injuries, but nothing shows up. “Look, are you ready yet? There’s only so much daylight.” Pushing aside the large white pompom that insists on hanging over his face, he scowls at Jack, but that seems to have done it and he’s now hanging onto the back of a chair, howling with laughter.

Torn between insult and satisfaction at Jack’s laughter, the Doctor folds his arms and watches, mouth twitching every now and then. Worth it, he decides, to provide a relief valve for some of the stress Jack is under. “If you're quite finished,” he suggests, as the laughter winds down. Jack looks up at him and covers his mouth, muffling a few stray giggles.

“You -” he says between breaths, “you, hats, _fez_ -”

“Fezzes are cool,” the Doctor asserts. “And it's not fair to gang up on me. This is a very nice hat, and it keeps my ears warm, and if you shoot it I shall leave.” He quite likes the hat, actually, it has a nice thick colorful band about the ears, and a long floppy bit, and a fancy fuzzy pompom.

Jack coughs, and rubs his hand over his face, and grins. “Hadn't crossed my mind.” He pulls on his own _extremely boring_ grey wool hat, and, waving at the door, asks, “Shall we?”

Upon leaving the guesthouse, they find a rather well behaved crowd of well-wishers waiting outside the fence. “Word sure got around fast,” he mutters to the Doctor, but handles it with his usual aplomb. He _sounds_ like a rescue worker now, self-effacing and dedicated, and the Doctor wonders how long he has made this his life, how many comrades he’s seen come and go, how many names and faces he has added to the toll of failures, in between the successes. Two children, this time, in addition to his crew; and Jack takes losing children hard.

Jack nearly blows the gaff when he hears the Doctor referred to as Dr Pond, but manages to turn his laugh into an _entirely_ suspicious sounding cough. “Yes,” he agrees, with a nearly indecent grin on his face, “ _Dr Pond_ does take very good care of me.” The Doctor hopes he isn’t blushing.

As they make their way to Jack’s ship, he raises an eyebrow questioningly. “Pond, now?”

“It’s not a policy change. Psychic paper, it’s a bit dodgy. I’d been lonely, that’s all.”

“So you came after me. I’m flattered, I suppose. Grateful, certainly.” His eyes are shadowed again, the good humor short lived.

“I'm not doing it for gratitude.”

“Why, then?” Jack sounds genuinely curious, but the Doctor can't answer.

“Haven't we already had this conversation?” he tries, and Jack glances at him, opens his mouth, then closes it again and looks away. The relief is surprisingly sour. “What are we doing with your ship?”

Jack glances at him again. “ _You_ aren't doing anything with it, it's working fine and I'd like it to stay that way.” The Doctor shoots him a wounded look but Jack just grins at him; maybe he's forgiven. “You're along because you can't let me out of your sight; don't think I haven't noticed. Not complaining,” he adds, as the Doctor scowls defiantly at him.

“I should hope not.”

“I, on the other hand,” the grin is gone as quick as it came and he stares ahead, eyes bleak, “am going to report in to SRS, request a pickup for… what's left of my crew, and my ship and equipment, and take a leave of absence. If you don't mind the company.”

Reaching out, not far at all, the Doctor catches his Captain's hand. “Not a bit,” he answers, relieved and gratified. “Not a bit.”

-+-+-+-

Jack tries to pay for their continued use of the guesthouse, but no one will hear of it. They have at least stopped coming by daily, which is really for the best for all concerned. Unable to face the darkness yet, Jack also refuses to run from it, and having promised his help the Doctor stays as well, for the most part. He goes out to wander and watch the galactic panorama in the dark, and the third day Jack stands in the doorway to see him off.

“I know I'm being ridiculous,” Jack says, eyes carefully on the Doctor. “It's not even very dark out here.”

“It's not ridiculous.” It's not the first time they have had this conversation, either. He is half turned toward Jack, watching him carefully but not hovering. “It was a horrific experience, anyone would be affected by it.”

“No one else would be around afterward to care,” Jack replies, with understandable bitterness. “I could write the book on trauma by now, though _afraid of the dark_ is a new one on me.” He is looking frustrated, and the Doctor suspects it is going to boil over into action quite soon; what sort, is the question. Taking a step back toward his lover, the Doctor holds out his hand, waits patiently as Jack stares as if it were a viper. Although still within the light spilling from the door, the Doctor is far enough away that Jack will have to take a step unassisted to reach.

Finally he does, gaze firmly fixed to the Doctor's hand as he steps forward. The Time Lord reels him in, pulls him tight with an arm about his waist, and turns his face to the sky by pressing his own cheek against Jack's. They venture no further into the darkness that night, only standing there at the threshold together. The house is very cold when they finally go in, warmth having fled along with the light into a lack of both too vast to be affected, but neither of them care overmuch. Wrapped up in bed, warmed by Jack's eternal furnace heat, the Doctor is content with slow progress.

A few days later, when Jack has reached a level of comfort with the well-lit night sky, the Doctor pulls a length of black fabric from his pocket.

“No,” says Jack, immediately.

Unsurprised, the Doctor folds the blindfold and sets it on a shelf, visible but not in the way. “Alright. Tell me when you're ready. We'll start slow.” Eyes sliding away, Jack nods acknowledgement. Even the darkness behind his eyelids was difficult, at first; it is not an easy thing the Doctor is asking and he did not expect Jack to agree immediately.

“There was this time,” Jack says, distraction mode engaged, “we got called in after some major wildfires. It was more salvage than search and rescue, mostly automated operations. But the robots had all kind of dug themselves into the ground to try to weather the heat, so it was… I mean I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, but it didn't turn out so well for them. So we’re trying to dig out these giant pieces of half-slagged, very well insulated metal. Hottest I've ever been and I couldn't even take my clothes off because burns really _aren't_ flattering; you wouldn't believe some of the comments I got.” He whistles mockingly. “Looking _hot_ , Axton! Never seen you wearing so many clothes!”

The chatter continues unabated for two days, Jack frequently glancing at, and then away from, the blindfold waiting for him on the shelf. The Doctor learns more about his life than he has ever known before, the things he thinks worth dying for, the people he has loved, the minutiae of his days, and still it only scratches the surface of the years he has lived between these times of the Doctor dropping in. No wonder Jack resents him, sometimes. Part of him wants to let Jack keep talking, to learn more about this man who lives and lives and somehow keeps loving him, but it's not doing Jack any good, and that is his purpose here. So at the end of the second day of chatter, he calls Jack over to sit by him in the long, low seat he has taken to stretching out to read in; not exactly a sofa, but it serves a similar purpose.

“So I said, I don't think _he_ got the memo either!” Jack is saying, as he makes himself comfortable. The wellspring of words abruptly runs dry, though, when the Doctor pulls out the blindfold again. Jack glances quickly at the shelf, clearly dismayed to find he had lost track of a threat.

“Keep talking,” the Doctor tells him gently. “Just keep talking. You can do that in the dark as well as anywhere. I won't leave you.” Words Jack has told him, will tell him, so many times.

Jack swallows nervously, does not close his eyes as the Doctor sets the cloth against his face, but stays where he is. “So we -” he continues, stuttering a bit, “so we're, we're running down the street -” the Doctor ties the blindfold on loosely, then sets his left arm around Jack's shoulders and takes his hand with his right, “with this, he looked just like a big, hairy, _turtle_ , I swear, running after us.” He sits rigidly, breath controlled but the Doctor can feel his heart hammering wildly. “Five of us, and he's yelling like mad, and everyone's popping their heads out the windows to watch. And all because nobody thought to tell me that it's some kind of mortal insult to suggest a haircut.” He can't manage the indignation that ought to color the story. No more words are forthcoming, but the Doctor is satisfied; he turns his lover's face toward him and kisses the corner of his mouth, his cheek half on the blindfold, over both covered eyes, then lets the cloth fall away. Jack leans against him, and breathes.

The stories stop, and the Doctor regrets it; but the next morning Jack brings the blindfold to him silently and settles at his side again. This time the Doctor talks. He has already told Jack everything about his recent life he can whilst he lay trapped in the cave; no telling how much he remembers but it's not worth it to remind him. Never a shortage of stories, though. Keeping hold of his lover the whole time, he waits ten minutes, then takes the blindfold off. Jack heaves a sigh of relief, but says nothing at first. Despite his silence this can't be mistaken as one of their games, and he needs no reassurance nor praise from the Doctor. It is his own internal struggle, and the Doctor is peripheral.

“Thank you for staying,” Jack says finally.

“You needed me,” the Doctor replies, willfully ignoring all the ways that statement fails to explain his actions toward Jack in the past. The sad smile on his Captain's face tells him Jack didn't miss the elision. He stills his hands where they are fidgeting with Jack's jumper - the blasted things are always moving - and offers, somewhat apologetically, “I'm here now.”

“So you are.” Bringing one of the Doctor's errant hands to his lips, Jack kisses it, then rises to his feet. “Sun's almost up, let's go out.” He snickers as he tosses the Doctor his hat. “You trendsetter, you.”

The light and fresh air and contact with others leave Jack feeling much better, and when they return to the guesthouse he sheds his hat and coat and boots, then grabs the blindfold. “Again,” he insists, handing it to the Doctor and sitting down resolutely, hands slapping his knees, “but with better distraction.”

With a bemused smile the Doctor ties the fabric around his head. “What did you have in mind? Ack!” He flails as Jack pulls him down, trying to avoid kneeing his lover somewhere they would both regret. They get sorted out eventually, both laughing, even if it is rather nervous and breathless in Jack's case. “Unorthodox,” the Doctor opines, as Jack's large, warm hands work themselves up under his shirt, braces be damned, “but workable,” and settles down to the business of distraction.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Starmouth and the sky of Hysskp was inspired by some of the incredible photos from this[2018 Skyscapes shortlist.](https://www.rmg.co.uk/whats-on/astronomy-photographer-year/galleries/2018/skyscapes) I've lived in cities all my life and never seen Mutter's Spiral in the sky, but someday I will._


	8. Past understanding

As he traces Jack's timeline again, the Doctor realises he can't save Jack from the next horror, because he caused it. The guilt he had slowly let fall to the back of his mind in all the time on Hysskp comes crashing back through him, with extras; what a crushing disappointment he must have been to Jack, when he came to him on Ophicche. A broken, angry man, lacking much of the history Jack would expect to share; a madman then, and a murderer.

Still, and always, a murderer. Why one more, however repeated, should make any difference there he doesn’t know, but that was probably how it started in the first place; what was one more, against the power to fix his mistakes?

And Jack… Jack believed him.

Gutted, the Doctor sinks into a seat, stares blankly at the console. Jack _believed_ him, that his pain and deaths were worth nothing. Already believed it; he saw it on Hysskp, he saw it every time before, that Jack weighs himself insignificant against any purpose he pursues. The persona he wears about himself is huge, but behind it part of him truly believes his only real purpose, the only real contribution he can make, is to die in place of others. But now he knows the man he loves, the man he trusts, the man he’ll follow to the ends of the universe, believes it as well.

“I thought I was _better_ , this time around,” the Doctor confides to the TARDIS, his only audience; she hums sympathetically to him. “I thought I could be less cruel, that I could… leave all that behind.” Head in his hands, he tugs at his hair. “But no, I just dress it up better.”

He can’t take sympathy right now. He wants a good fight, but not with Jack, he can't bear the thought of causing more pain to Jack; and it seems like a terrible plan to go out and pretend to solve problems when he is actually spoiling for a fight. He will end up in the middle of a Cyberman invasion, or watching Daleks kill everyone _again_ , or leading good people to their deaths. Hauling himself to his feet, he leaves the console room so he’s not tempted and wanders, trying to escape himself. Eventually he ends up in his cupboard; he had forgotten that the person he hides from most is himself. Stretching out on the bed, he watches the completely unfamiliar configuration of stars above him, trying to map them against what he knows.

He wakes with a start, momentarily uncertain what could have startled him. The TARDIS is peaceful and silent, but there is an extra weight and warmth to the world: as if conjured by his thoughts, Jack is sitting at the end of his bed, watching him quietly.

“What?” he says, with what he feels is remarkable aplomb given the circumstances.

Jack's lips quirk up. “I was hoping you could tell me.”

“What?” Sitting up, the Doctor shakes his head. “How did you get here?”

His Captain looks a bit taken aback at that. “Just walked in. Why, were you hiding? Is this where you go?” He waves his finger in a circle, indicating the room. “It’s cute. I know I told you to come back but you cut it pretty close.”

“ _I_ didn't, I was asleep.”

“So you were.” Jack peers curiously at him. “When is this, for you?”

“When is it for _you?_ ” the Doctor returns, quickly sliding into irritability.

“Just after you left, to _get back to what you were doing_ , like I said. My little house on Bellacosa. You didn't mean to be here.” He hides the disappointment quickly, but it still stings; no matter what he does, the Doctor can't keep from hurting this man. He looks away.

“No, not,” _at all,_ “...really. After Hysskp, for me.” He stands up, paces the two strides that he can manage in his tiny room. “She's meddling again.” When he turns back, Jack is frowning, confused.

“I thought… it was a long time ago, but you seemed fine when we parted, then. Actually fine, not Doctor-fine. You fixed me up again. I went back to SRS, did you know? Spent another twenty years with them.”

“Yes, I fixed you up, and then the next time you saw me…” He trails off, hands tumbling nervously. Jack has warned him about going out of order, but it was Jack who sent him here, now, in the first place, and excoriated by guilt there is very little resistance he can muster; he wants answers, and answers from the future will do. “ _Why?_ Why did you let me do that to you? Why did she take me to you, the state I was in?”

Jack, this Jack who may be older than he is, who was so looking forward to his return, who took care of him last time with no questions asked, watches him silently for a few moments; evaluating the state he is in now, the Doctor thinks. “I don't think I can tell you,” he says eventually, shaking his head. “Not the second one. And you already know the answer to the first.”

“Can't, or won't?” the Doctor demands, taking a step toward him. The _need_ for him has dimmed with time, but it is still very difficult to stay back when he is so near, the deep stability of him drawing the Time Lord in like gravity.

Jack stands and steps toward the door. “You know better than to ask that.” Infuriating man, to chastise him as if he were a child! The Doctor takes another step, and another, and now has his Captain pressed up against the door, blocking its opening.

“Don't go,” he says, not sure whether it is a request or an order, angry and frustrated and guilty and afraid. Jack doesn't look any of these; he looks sceptical.

“I don't think you're in any condition to stop me. Why don't you wallow in your guilt some more, come out when you're sensible again.” Shocked by the harsh words, the Doctor takes a step back; Jack pushes him back a half step more, turns, and slips out the door.

It doesn't take more than two minutes for everything to come to a flashpoint in the Doctor's mind, and then he's off too, following Jack with quick furious strides, forgetting his jacket in his haste. Catching Jack up between the TARDIS and his house, the Doctor grabs his shoulder and swings him around. “You have nothing to say about _sensible_ , Captain, you fling yourself into danger without a second thought, you're ready to kill yourself at the drop of a hat, and you are _in love_ with your _murderer_!”

But Jack just stares back at him, eyes narrow, head turned slightly to the side; not backing down at all where his own Jack, he thinks, would. “Well if we're going _there_ ,” he says, and the Doctor begins to feel a disturbing sinking sensation, “so are you.”

Mouth open but utterly unable to formulate words, the Doctor stares back into those icy blue eyes, feeling the terrible fire underneath. Then something flares up in him to match, not the fury nor the despair but something else he tries to keep locked down tight as he can. “I'll go you one better,” he says, voice low and dark, narrowing his eyes in turn. He fists his hand in Jack’s jumper, pulls him in until their cheeks touch and whispers, “I murdered the man I love. And sometimes…” he pushes Jack away again so he can see his face. “Sometimes, I _liked_ it.”

Disconcertingly, terrifyingly, Jack is smiling. Thinks this is a joke, or…? But he _needs_ belief, now that these truths have been voiced they are too heavy for him to carry alone. In one quick motion, the Doctor yanks the jumper up and over Jack’s head, pulls him around and twists it at his elbows, stretching his shoulders painfully. Left hand at his throat, the Doctor pulls him backward to growl in his ear, “Do you see now? Is this what you wanted? If you fight me, Captain, _I will win_. Are you scared yet? Because I am.”

Balancing on the balls of his feet, knees bent, Jack looks at him upside down from where he is held to the Doctor's shoulder. “Everything you are,” he says, and falls to his knees as the Doctor pushes him away. “That's what I want. You trusted me to take care of you. Trust me with this.”

Feeling the edge of a precipice beneath his feet, the Doctor breathes in carefully. “Your gods of mercy won't save you.”

A fey and fearsome smile transforms Jack's face as he twists to look up at the Doctor. “I don't want them to.”

“Well, then.” His standard-bearer, his scapegoat; Jack can carry the weight of his truth. An answering smile begins to spread across his face; sometimes when like calls to like, darkness is all that stirs. “I won't deny you.” Setting a boot to Jack’s back, he shoves and Jack goes down hard, arms still trapped behind him. “Get up, miracle man. All that immense life, and shall I tell you all it comes to? All of you, in five little words.” He watches as Jack struggles to stand, spitting blood, face and chest scraped from the ground. “Get up, and _follow me_.”

-+-+-+-

The Doctor leans against a large stone, his lover’s battered body cradled between his legs. In the end it hadn’t been about death, which was a relief; it hadn’t been about sex, either, which was different; it certainly hadn’t been about submission, because Jack never offered any, only a fierce joy and a determination to push the Doctor as far as he could go. It hadn’t even really been about the pain. As best he can determine, from this place of stillness at the end, they had each been trying to prove something, a battle of wills in the heart of darkness they share between them.

He has the distinct and unsettling feeling that Jack, somehow, has won.

His lover stirs, and the Doctor raises a hand to gently discourage him from moving; he is reclined back against the Doctor's chest, head turned to press an ear between his hearts. Nothing needs changing. Nothing needs doing, or saying, or thinking. Just this once, stillness is all the Doctor wants. Jack settles, and the Doctor presses his lips briefly to his head, and they are together, separately, for a while.

Eventually, though, Jack eases himself carefully upright; his wounds have closed but the two of them are plastered together with dried blood. “I doubt you'll stay, so I'll save you the trouble of refusing,” he says with a wry half smile, “but come have a shower? Maybe dinner?”

“Yes,” the Doctor says, “and maybe dinner.” Pushing himself up the stone behind him, stained with Jack’s blood, he stands and offers a hand, similarly stained, to pull Jack up. He had expected it to feel different, being able to _see_ the blood on his hands, but it doesn’t. “Jack, I’m -”

“Don’t.” Still a little unsteady, Jack leans against him, sets a finger against his lips. “Don’t apologise on my account, anyway. Go ahead and apologise if you need to, I won’t make that mistake again.” He takes his finger away with a smile, pauses to see if the Doctor will say anything. He doesn’t. Jack sets his hand against his face, slides it around to the back of his neck, rests their foreheads together. “Right here, right now, there’s nothing to fear. Not even yourself.”

Eyes closed, head bowed, held fast to his anchor, his sun, the welcome certainty in the waning years of a long, long life, the Doctor is unafraid.

In the shower he washes Jack meticulously, making sure every wound has closed, every bit of damage he had done has begun healing, gently cleaning away every trace of blood. Jack lets himself be taken care of, making pleased noises as the Doctor works fingertips over his scalp. It feels strangely uncomplicated, considering what came before; they don't talk, and the Doctor doesn't let Jack wash him in turn, just holds him close when he tries until he relaxes again.

When they dress, the Doctor finds trousers that fit but deliberately borrows one of Jack's shirts. It's too big and he doesn't care, not when Jack looks at him like that, like he is something precious, something to hold on to. Whenever this is in Jack's timeline, it is clear he cherishes every moment the Doctor is here with him, even being beaten bloody, and it is past understanding but very, very real.

In light of this he does stay for dinner; they make sandwiches, neither having the energy for anything more. Breaking the companionable silence, Jack asks, “What happened, that made you -” then cuts himself off. “No, you didn't mean to come. Nevermind.” He looks away, takes another bite of his sandwich, visibly derails his thoughts and tries to come up with a smile again.

“Only because I didn't want to hurt you,” the Doctor answers, willingly truthful for once, hoping to chase the sadness away.

Losing his attempt at a smile again, Jack searches the Doctor's face as his own undergoes an indistinct series of transformations. When he speaks, his voice is choked. “Now you know, I hope you know, _always_ come to me. All the times in the past you haven't relied on me, if even a few of them were because you came to me now, then it's been worth it.” He takes a deep breath, then another, clearly struggling with himself over something. “Promise me,” he says in a close approximation to his normal voice, “I know better than to ask for your promises in any normal situation, but Doctor, _promise me_ you'll come back. Even if it's another day like today. Especially so.”

“Someday I won't be able to,” the Doctor points out. He has said similar things in the past, for many reasons: to spare pain, to reduce expectations, to make the leaving easier. This is none of those. He can't spare Jack the pain of a loss he strongly suspects has already happened, for him; nothing he says or does now will change what Jack wants of him, which itself is vastly different from what he actually expects; and leaving will never be easier.

“When you no longer can,” his lover replies solemnly, “then I will come to you.” As baffling as this statement is, with the Doctor's understanding of the matter, it is still reassuring. “But until then, Doctor, promise me that you'll come back. To me, here. Let me be, for once, the one who doesn't do the waiting." His hand is laid on the table, open in entreaty, and the Doctor reaches for it, rubs Jack's palm with his thumb.

“I promise,” he says, and means it. “I will come back to you, here.” There is no other answer he can make to the gift of acceptance Jack has given him.

He doesn't leave after dinner, either. Setting their dishes in the sink, he turns to his Captain, still standing at the table. “Would it be alright if I stayed a little longer?”

“Always,” Jack answers, a smile beginning to lighten his eyes. “You never need to ask _that_.”

Pacing deliberately toward him, watching his face, the Doctor points out, “I'd rather ask too often than not enough.” Jack shrugs a shoulder in acknowledgement, but his smile doesn't fade; the Doctor wonders, but won't ask, how long it has been for him. He pushes Jack backward so he sits on the table, reaches for his shirt buttons. “May I?” he asks, tugging at the bottommost one just so there is no confusion.

Jack gives him a look which tells him very clearly _I see what you did there_ and says, “Please do,” which swings them back out of that script and the Doctor's attempt at an apology both. “You owe your apologies to the past, Doctor; not to me.” He is an open book, to this man.

“There's always something to apologise for,” the Doctor mumbles, bent to his task, but Jack reaches to tilt his chin back up and catch his eyes.

“Not here,” he says, warm breath ghosting over the Doctor's face, “not now. This is for us, this is for _me;_ your respite, my reward.” Leaning forward, grasping the Doctor's chin lightly, he presses his lips to the Doctor's in a soft kiss.

Chaste and slow as it is, the fever heat of him still inflames; the Doctor groans hungrily and nips at Jack's lip, hurries to finish with the buttons. “And what is it you want,” he asks between kisses, “for your reward?”

His Captain lets his hand fall slowly down the Doctor's neck, rest on his shoulder, thumb stroking the hollow of his throat; it is a reminder that the vulnerability between them goes both ways and the Doctor embraces the nervous flutter in his stomach willingly. Jack’s other hand creeps under his overlarge shirt to his back, to pull him in tighter. “You. All of you.” It is plain, unvarnished truth, and the Doctor doesn't know how to respond save continue as he is. “We can be gentle with each other,” Jack offers.

“Is that what you want?” Nothing about today has been gentle.

A conspiratorial smile tugs Jack's lips upward. “You caught me. No. And if you stay tomorrow I'll be up for anything again.” He winks, and the Doctor thinks perhaps there isn't any great hurry, after all. “But for tonight, mostly yes.”

Bending his head, the Doctor licks at Jack's neck, his collarbone, pushes his shirt back to seek out the fading marks of their terrible whatever-it-was earlier. Too one-sided to be called a fight, but neither was Jack at all passive. And all because, all because… “You smiled,” he says, without lifting his head, “outside, when I said…” he can't say it again. “You smiled, and it was terrifying. I wasn't joking. Why did you smile?”

His lover laughs, and says fondly, “You're so thick sometimes.” He is rubbing small circles at the base of the Doctor's spine and it is making it very hard to concentrate; he wants to flop down and _purr_. “I thought I'd have to work much harder for an admission like that.”

His response doesn't make sense. “Jack, I did, I _did_ ,” it's worse than he could have imagined, admitting it in cold blood, but maybe Jack understands something the Doctor doesn't and he needs to understand the horror he has committed. “Sometimes I did enjoy it,” he whispers, finally.

Hand soothing on his back, Jack's voice is utterly matter-of-fact. “I know. And I know that's very hard for you to accept. You're always running from yourself, Doctor, you always have been, and I hope someday…” He shakes his head, hand never stopping its movement. “But until then… run here. Nothing to be afraid of, here.” Then he smiles, briefly. “But I wasn't joking either, or naive, when I said I want everything you are. You gave it to me.”

Lifting his head, the Doctor frowns, disturbed. “The worst of me - Jack, why?”

Jack shrugs. “Why do the stars burn? I've had the best of you, too, and a lot in between. But there's always more to see, and I want to see it.” Mouth curving into a tender smile, he traces a finger gently over the Doctor's lips, up the ridge of his cheekbone, down his jaw. “It doesn't hurt to be called _the man you love_ occasionally, either.”

Pulling away reflexively, the Doctor stammers, “I, well, but -” before realising denial is probably a lost cause, with this man who knows so much of him, and hurtful besides. His lover is watching him patiently, eyes deep and warm and accepting. “But you knew that,” he finishes weakly. Not the first, nor the only, but that wouldn't bother Jack.

“But I don't think you did, when you left me on Ophicche. I’d wondered what made you realise. My view of this period of your life is quite strange, you understand.” It must be, at that. His days, scattered across Jack's timeline, yet all lived during the single long night Jack is sleeping on Ophicche. The slow unfolding, for Jack, of all the events that will make him into the man who wakes him.

Reaching behind him, the Doctor captures Jack’s hand against his back. “Keep doing that,” he says, “in a moment.” Jack chuckles as the Doctor pulls him after to the bedroom. He is still happier to follow the Doctor’s lead, but eventually there will be so many years between them that that will no longer be true; the Doctor can’t help but wonder, what will be left to them then?

-+-+-+-

 

_You say I took the name in vain_  
_I don't even know the name_  
_But if I did, well really, what's it to you?_  
_There's a blaze of light in every word_  
_It doesn't matter which you heard_  
_The holy or the broken Hallelujah_  
  
_( -Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen)_

 


	9. Back soon

He might consider returning to Ophicche to wake Jack up, if he didn't already know he goes on. In hindsight it was madness that set him on this course, madness and guilt and the desperate need for an anchor in a universe that felt all wrong in his head, and perhaps it is still madness that drives him forward. When he had conceived this plan of atonement, of guarding Jack from the worst the universe would throw at him over his interminable life, he had not truly considered _Jack_ in it; had not thought beyond that need to the effect of their inevitable interactions on both of them.

But he is months in now and only caught up to his own Jack, seven hundred years old he'd said. At some point… at some point he will have to stop. His own remaining time is so short, compared to his Captain’s. But until then it will be well spent, a repayment on the incalculable pain he has caused, the hundreds upon hundreds of deaths dealt to this one man at his hand. He has not yet had the fortitude to consider the galaxy that was his plaything all those years. Jack is all he can help now, returned to his limited mortal self. It seems a worthwhile pursuit; something about taking care of Jack appeals to the Doctor's sense of responsibility to the universe, as if Jack himself is a kind of legacy and by shoring him up he contributes to the enduring quality of time.

He doesn't go to wake Jack. But he does stop in to check on him; he has unanswered questions. For a decade of Jack's time, he slips in and out, taking reading after reading of anything he can think of: neural activity, physical condition, artron energy, psychic activity, environmental contaminants.

Not properly in stasis, neither is he sleeping. The patterns of neutral activity are not quite what the Doctor expects from dreams either; they more closely match waking sight. No psychic disturbances, nothing unexpected in the environment. The artron energy never fades, though, as it should for an object moored in one place and time. All the Doctor can think is that, as a sort of manifestation of Time himself, Jack can never truly be set aside from it as one in stasis usually is, his connection to the Vortex allowing his mind to drift freely.

Whatever the reason, he is glad of it. If mercy is truly all Jack retains hope for, he has been granted some here.

Patting the lid of Jack's stasis pod affectionately, the Doctor gathers his instruments, satisfied for now. It has come to hurt less, gradually, seeing him lying pale and still there; the Doctor can feel his steady Fixed Point the whole time and can't mistake him for dead. He is only waiting. “Wait a little longer,” the Doctor says quietly, and turns back to the TARDIS.

“Done here, for now,” he tells her. “On to the next!” But there is turbulence again at the next time he tries for, and like last time they manage to materialise, but not quite at Jack. He is here somewhere, his bright still point unmistakable, but although the Doctor waits there is no sign of excessive dying going on. Too early this time, perhaps; he is starting to suspect these timeline troubles may involve _himself_. Reluctant to interfere, he waits another day, but eventually leaves none the wiser. If it is himself he will catch up to it eventually, in any case. When the TARDIS declines to attempt his next target at all, he doesn't argue but simply goes on.

After the thud of materialisation, the Doctor crosses to the doors, impatient to be about it, but they won't open. “How do you expect me to rescue him if you won't let me out?” he demands, frustrated, spinning back to poke a finger at the TARDIS's central column. She directs his attention to the blinking lights on the console by way of an answer; harrumphing, he strides back over to examine whatever has come up on the sensors. “Nitrogen, oxygen, carbon, chlorine. Carbon monoxide, but not enough to cause problems. COCl2 - phosgene? Ah hah!” The Doctor claps his hands. “Phosgene, that's more exciting! And thirty eight ppm, you're right, old girl, definitely need the containment suit.” Jogging down the stairs to the storage compartment for his suit, there is an extra spring in his step. “Environmental hazards, that's always fun. What do you suppose Jack is doing here?”

In hindsight, the immediate answer, at least, is obvious. After settling his helmet and checking the seals, the Doctor makes his way back up the stairs and to the doors which now open for him. The landscape outside is uninspiringly dull, rocky and mostly flat although ridges rise against the horizon, and the air is slightly hazy but unremarkable. Aside from the deadly poison it would be perfectly breathable if rather smelly, and in fact that seems to be what Jack is doing, which is unfortunate.

“Doctor!” Jack waves an arm upon spotting him. He has found a bit of a ridge to inhabit and looks surprisingly comfortable, settled against the stone, long coat pulled around him against the morning chill. “Good to see you!” He grins. “See, that wasn't so bad, was it.”

Very much not what the Doctor was expecting, he finds himself a bit at a loss. Gesturing around vaguely, he replies, “It seems rather unfortunate to me…?”

“Well, yes, _this_ is certainly an unpleasant place to spend any time.” He waves a hand dismissively. “But all I could think at first was you'd be so disappointed in me, getting myself into a situation like this just after sending you off to -” Cutting himself off, he regards the confused Doctor narrow-eyed, gaze traveling down and back up again quizzically. “Have we done Gosla yet?”

He had not expected to need to play this game yet. “No, you're still… I haven't been back to Ophicche to wake you up yet.” Jack's eyebrow is climbing, a wild mix of expressions flickering across his face. Constitutionally incapable of resisting, the Doctor rubs his hands in interest and asks, “Sending me off to what?”

Amusement and horror both evident on his face, Jack's lips are twitching and there's a touch of hysteria in his voice as he says, “Spoilers!” which seems to be a spreading epidemic. A choked noise escapes him as he rubs his face vigorously; then he looks back at the Doctor. “Still the itinerant rescuer, then?” His voice is nearly back to normal. The Doctor nods; it's an apt description. “You'll have just done Hysskp?”

“Yes.” Aside from things still in his future. It will never be simple again, but it never has been as simple as he had thought it, anyway. “Has it been very long, for you?”

“Since Hysskp?” Jack is just amused, now. “Do you want me to count the years in stasis? Even just from when you wake me again it was better than fifty years, or almost two hundred forty if you'd rather. Yeah, it's been a while.”

“Right, well, I'll skip that question, in future,” the Doctor mutters, then realises that Jack has neatly sidestepped the question he had _meant_ to ask.

“Good plan. Oh, Doctor…” Jack shakes his head. “I knew there was more you’d done, I just… hadn’t realised it was more of the same. Well. I say that.” A mischievous grin is overtaking his face now. “Depends what we’re calling _the same_ …” Waggling his eyebrows, he gives the Doctor a significant look.

“Oh, no, Jack, not another of your Captain Jack specials?” The Doctor can _feel_ the blush overtaking him. Fordering Station was bad enough, he’s not sure he will survive another one.

“Is _that_ what you're calling it? I seem to recall being quite well behaved, on the whole.” Jack laughs as the Doctor sputters, and rises to his feet. “I haven’t done it yet either, I don’t know. All I’m saying is your response to mentions of certain things was more hilarious than I can explain otherwise. No spoilers here, Doc.” Then he coughs, a wet, racking sound. “Well, hell.”

Recalled suddenly to the realities of Jack's situation, the Doctor grabs his arm and begins towing him toward the TARDIS. “You can't stay out here, Captain!”

Jack resists. “I've already had a lethal dose. Again. It's no good going in now, it'll just take me longer to die. Less time spent drowning in my own lungs the better, I always say.” He gives the Doctor a lopsided smile, then coughs again. “Or at least I've recently grown fond of saying it…”

“Humour me, Jack, please,” the Doctor begs. “Maybe I can do something for you in the infirmary.”

Apparently willing to humour him, Jack comes along. “You could get it over with quicker at least, I suppose.” Appalled, the Doctor stops and stares at his Captain, who is looking at him with quickly fading consternation. “Ah. Still a ways to go, then… Nevermind,” he says, louder, “lead on, Doctor, maybe you can do something to help.” He doesn't sound hopeful, though.

“I am not going to kill you,” the Doctor says angrily, once again dragging Jack behind him. “I am not doing all this just to end up killing you again!”

“I know. I’m sorry.” He coughs again, and it sounds worse. “I'll be glad to get out of this stink, at least. Brings back memories. All those damned posters they'd put up… all those poor damned kids.”

“You've been out here too long.” Long enough to be drifting in memory, which never does either of them any favors.

“Oh, yes,” Jack sighs, and coughs again, and follows the Doctor into the TARDIS. “Not even sure why.” He sheds his coat immediately as the Doctor works on getting out of his containment suit, momentarily very worried about Jack's mental state. “I hope this will wash out, I tried to keep the worst of it off the coat… Think I'm at the wrong end of a time loop, here. Certainly more time to think it through hasn't helped much.”

“Time loop, that sounds interesting -” Then the Doctor looks up and blanches at the bloodstained clothing previously hidden under Jack's coat. “You…” He gestures, speechlessly.

Jack looks down. “Oh. No, phosgene doesn't leave a pretty corpse, sorry to say. You'll get to see in about - well I'd say four or five hours, but breathing clean air will probably prolong it.” Swallowing sickly, the Doctor closes his eyes and looks away, and feels a gentle touch on his arm. “It'll be alright. Come on.”

In the infirmary, Jack pulls off his ruined shirt, frowning at it in thought. “I don't usually care much, but I think I need this. Or something very similar… Think your laundry can handle it?”

The Doctor looks dubiously at the remains of multiple messy deaths, days old now, but he has witnessed some rather remarkable restorations of items he had thought destined for the bin, so who knows. “She'll do her best, I'm sure. Just… hang about. I'll figure out something to do.”

With a brief caress of his cheek that leaves him dizzy after the days without, Jack steps past him toward the door. “I'm going to take a shower, then, I'll be right back.” The Doctor holds up a hand, fishes out his sonic screwdriver and scans him, then waves him on.

When Jack returns, clean and dressed and finishing off a sandwich, he is still bent over the console, feeling rather useless and slightly regretful that he had insisted on bringing Jack in to wait out a longer death. There is, at least, considerably more comfort available in the TARDIS; and he won't be alone.

“Nothing?” Jack asks, sounding unsurprised.

“I can sedate you for the end bit… but otherwise, no.”

Winding warm arms about him, Jack rests his chin on the Doctor's head, glancing over the screen. “It's alright,” he says reassuringly, even though the Doctor is sure the reassurance ought to be going the other direction, “nothing I haven't done before.”

“That's not as strong a selling point as you seem to think it is.” Jack snorts, and holds him tighter. “How did you end up stuck out there, anyway?”

“That's the confusing part.” The Doctor spins his seat around to watch as Jack straightens and steps back to perch on the infirmary bed, then coughs wetly into his sleeve. “Sorry. I was on the trail of a Kananthan fissure generator, which is a nasty piece of work and no mistake, and ended up in Frog,” he gestures vaguely and coughs again, “over there somewhere. Sealed dome arcology, mostly manufacturing, polymers apparently. They use the phosgene, just keep all the hazardous stuff outside. So I teleport in, and there's a guy staring at me, and before I can get two words out he says, 'That's the third time today, Harkness, and I warned you’ - and then someone shot me in the back of the head and I woke up outside the dome.” He seems to have used up all of his anger in the time since, though, and is left with baffled irritation. “They took my vortex manipulator and credit stick and threw me out like trash. I ask you. And I have definitely never been there before.”

The Doctor blinks, and frowns. “That is certainly irregular, best look into it. Ah, when you're feeling better.”

“Right.” Jack flops backward onto the bed, lounging insouciantly. “Could I trouble you for something to read whilst I wait?”

He makes a rather fetching picture, circumstances notwithstanding, and the Doctor pauses to lean down for a long-overdue greeting. Nibbling lightly at his lover's lips, he strokes the longer than usual hair away from paler than usual forehead; the corners of Jack’s eyes crinkle at his touch, and he traces those lines too. He lets his other hand wander, stealing up under Jack's shirt, on the theory that his Captain has spent far too long without friendly contact at this point. Jack tugs him closer, the marvelous heat of his tongue sliding against his own, and Jack's hands seem to have settled one tucked under the back of his braces and one firmly on his backside, kneading slowly. It is very difficult for the Doctor to pull away but Jack is satisfactorily flushed when he does, catching his breath as he stares up at him.

“And more of that,” Jack suggests, dark eyes never leaving the Doctor's face. “ _Much_ more of that, when I'm feeling better.”

Feeling accomplished, the Doctor grins. “And more of that.” Then Jack coughs, painful and racking; as soon as he is laying comfortably again the Doctor rubs his hands and turns toward the door. “Reading material!” he announces. “Won't be a minute.”

None of Jack's books are still out, in the library, so the Doctor rummages around and makes a few guesses as to what he might like. Equipped with his selections, he is on his way back to the infirmary, humming absently, when he feels Jack’s bright steady flame suddenly wink out.

Dropping the books in shock, he runs the rest of the way. “Jack!” It's no good calling for him when he's _dead_ , the Doctor is perfectly well aware of this but it's reflex, he can't help it. Jack is laid out on the bed, red flecked towel the only evidence of another bad coughing fit, and an empty hypospray sits on the bench atop a hastily scrawled note: _back soon CJH_.

Staring blankly at the note, the Doctor can't settle on a reaction. As suicide notes go, it's very… Jack. And he oughtn't be shocked, maybe; he has already witnessed two and a half suicides directly in service to himself, one of which he all but begged for, which… is more than he is ready to think about at the moment. Is it really even suicide, when it is an expedient way to avoid a prolonged, messy death? A death Jack has already experienced multiple times, at that.

But yes, it is, and yes, he's shocked, and _yes_ , Jack _knew_ he wasn't agreeing to this solution when he came on board.

“You!” The Doctor raises thunderous gaze to the ceiling, a sudden new target for his growing anger presenting itself. “You gave it to him! This is not what I agreed to and you knew it!” He picks up the hypospray and slams it down on the bench, crushing it. “Did he beg prettily, did he convince you somehow? We are not in the business of assisting suicides!”

But the TARDIS is unimpressed with his outburst. _He asked_ , the Doctor understands from her, with no elaboration beyond a mild disappointment in his reaction, overlaid on the love she carries always for both of them.

“That is _not_ how love works!” Needing a more active outlet for his distress, he slams out of the infirmary to the console room, pulls his coat on, and pecks forcefully at the keyboard, searching for the most recent use of a vortex manipulator in the vicinity. When they arrive he strides toward the door without a word, but spins on his heel when he reaches it, coattails flaring, pointing at the console. “You. Keep him _safe!_ ” he orders, and storms out.

The deeply shadowed alleyway he emerges into is irregular, winding between and under tall buildings, the oppressive walls occasionally broken by a shorter building or an intersecting alley. The Doctor turns to his right, which seems slightly less densely built up, and follows the sound of quiet voices and something being dragged; Jack, most likely, if he has come to the right place. It is not always easy to determine the correct way to turn to follow the noise in the narrow alleys, but quite abruptly his alley spills into a larger passageway, open and lit and ending at the edge of the dome. He waits in the shadows.

Three men are there with Jack's body, one presently rising to his feet, holding a few items, the other two waiting. “Dump him,” says the first. “Maybe _that'll_ be enough to get rid of him.” With a few more words exchanged, the other two men heft Jack's body through an opening that irises open in the wall.

Stepping forward, the Doctor plants himself in the middle of the passage, straightens his bowtie, brushes down his coat, and is waiting for them when they turn around. He holds out a hand, ignoring their surprised exclamations. “I'll have those.”

“The hell you say,” says the leader, as easily as if this were a perfectly normal conversation starter. “That guy’s been harassing me all day. I told him it would get him shot. Get you shot, too.”

“Fucking looney,” one of the others mutters. “Kept introducing himself every time he’d pop up.”

Very few people are willing to stand up to an angry madman, the Doctor has found. “I'll make up for it by not introducing myself.” The man looks surprised to have been heard and eyes him warily. “But you won't be keeping what you stole, and I don't much care how I accomplish that. After all, Jack will be needing them back.” Baring his teeth in a mad grin, he steps forward, and the men glance anxiously at each other as well as toward the disposal hatch. Brandishing his screwdriver as menacingly as he can, the Doctor asks, “Any suggestions? He's worth more than the three of you together, but I'd be willing to take your lives in trade, if you like.”

One after another, the three men take a step back. The one who called Jack a looney elbows the man who helped him drag Jack's body, who nods and nudges the leader in turn. He glares at them, then throws up his hands. “Fine, have it, just keep your undead friend away from us. Don't need that kind of trouble…” He tosses Jack's possessions to the ground, and warily circles around the Doctor to escape, followed by his associates.

The Doctor watches them go, can hear them muttering about _don't know what half that stuff was_ and _probably worthless anyway_ and _ruining business_. He can't imagine anyone shedding tears over the business of people in the habit of killing people who annoy them. He gathers up Jack's vortex manipulator, credit stick, a portfolio with psychic paper, a pocket multitool which he discharges, and a chain with an odd collection of items strung on it: a few rings, data chips of various designs, more and less identifiable items the Doctor suspects are mementos. Jack had not mentioned it, and the Doctor has never seen it before. Helpless distress somewhat diminished, he retraces his steps to the TARDIS thoughtfully.

He makes it back before Jack revives, barely. In the rush of anger he had forgotten he didn't want him to revive alone. Watching from the doorway, he sees the glance toward the note, the wince at the crumpled hypospray; then Jack looks up and sees him. “Doctor -”

“I understand,” the Doctor says quickly, “as well as I can, in any case, and I don't mean to stand in judgement of you.” Relaxing slightly, Jack sits up and crosses his legs on the bed, still guarded. “That doesn't make me any happier about it.”

“I know,” his lover agrees. “That's why I sent you off to get books.”

“You used my TARDIS.” Probably the most disturbing part, now that he's thinking about it. It is hard to stay angry at Jack for attempting to reduce any of the endless misery he is doomed to endure.

Jack sighs. “She and I… there was all that time we really only had each other. Or at least I only had her, and she was there for me. It's not… I can't take her from you, Doctor, it's nothing like that.” He catches the Doctor's eye then, resolutely. “But I didn't _use_ her. I asked her.”

It is the Doctor's turn to look away. “That's what she told me, too.” He can feel her resignation, the hope that her boys make up quickly. “Oh, fine, alright.” Pulling his hands out of his pockets, he deposits all Jack's retrieved property on the bed in front of him. “There. It seems they're a superstitious lot.” Grinning suddenly, he confides, “Mentioned you'd be needing these again and you should have seen how keen they were to get away from _that_.”

Jack laughs, then stops abruptly as his hand darts out to the chain of oddities. “Those sons of hellhounds, I didn't even notice… You were too good to them.” He stuffs the chain in his pocket, carefully but firmly, and then collects his other effects, straps his vortex manipulator back on, rolls his eyes in amused resignation as he checks the charge on the multitool. “I wasn't going to go shoot them. It does a lot more than that, you know.”

The Doctor raises a brow. “Needs more sonic.”

Jack laughs. “Doing the best I can with what I got, Doc. It's better than a banana.”

“Nothing's better than a banana,” the Doctor replies, affronted. “Unless you want me to eat it, I don't do that anymore.”

Hopping down from the bed, Jack winks lasciviously and saunters up to him. “Got something else you can eat.”

Smile tugging at his lips, the Doctor looks his lover over doubtfully, brow raised. “That was rubbish, Captain. Are you sure you're feeling better?”

“Miraculous recovery, and all that.” Jack slips his hands under the Doctor's coat, rests them warm and heavy at his waist, rubbing thumbs in small circles over his hip bones. Caught now by the gravity between them, all the stronger for having finally reached a Jack who is properly _his_ , the Doctor sways forward, eyes falling closed. Leaning forward as well, Jack lays his cheek against the Doctor's, breath hot in his ear. “Shall I demonstrate?” he asks in that sultry rumble that always seems to bypass any ability the Doctor normally has to, to _think_ , he usually has that ability -

“Yes,” he says instead, “please do.”

-+-+-+-

“Didn't you have a time loop to close?”

They have been willfully ignoring the outside world for a day; despite the cheerful greeting at first Jack had needed a break. _I try not to let it get to me_ , he had said. _Eventually something will happen. Usually you._ His smile as he'd said it had left the Doctor feeling elated for hours, basking in the affirmation that for once he's got it _right_. Could have been a little more timely, he supposes, but that's the other side of seeking out these places in Jack's timeline; he doesn't get there soon because then he wouldn't have come at all.

Jack looks up from where he is sprawled over a sofa in the library. “Got all of eternity to do it, haven't I? What's the rush?”

Startled, the Doctor laughs. “I suppose.” He leans against the arm of the sofa and slides his hand up the leg of Jack's trousers. All the contact, all the anchoring he could wish again, finally, now that he is past the consuming need for it; but it is still pleasant. “Still, carry on like that and you'll have a to-do list longer than the Perseus Arm. Where’s the fun in that, eh? And your coat came through the wash quite safely.”

“Shirt didn't. But that's easy enough to replace.” Jack hasn’t moved, his book laid upside down on his chest, one arm trailing off the side of the sofa.

Peering quizzically down at him, the Doctor announces, “You’re _moping_. Why?”

“Ennui,” his lover replies with the paucity of words that seems to signal existential exhaustion in him, and closes his eyes. “It’ll pass.”

“That’s not a _reason_ , that’s a _thing_.” He waits, but Jack doesn’t respond. “I mean, yes, apparently a thing you have, but…” Suddenly he remembers that sex for Jack is approximately equivalent to launching the TARDIS into the unknown for him: brilliant but not remotely correlated with being alright in any way. “Oh.”

Cracking an eyelid open, Jack echoes, “Oh?”

“Just remembered something.” He pats his lover’s leg. “Back in a bit.” Time to go distract himself, and let Jack do what he needs to. He will come back later and suggest a quick trip somewhere; running for their lives always seems to cheer Jack up. Then he can go finish his time loop. It seems sensible enough to be visiting people in reverse order when they are this prone to killing visitors, at least when the killing doesn't prematurely end one's investigations.

-+-+-+-

 


	10. One for every century

Space again. He doesn't think Jack actually spends that much time _in_ space; it must just be the ease with which those deaths become protracted. Most spaceships do not, after all, waste much space on a morgue, and if a result of misadventure a body is small and difficult to find or retrieve. After materializing nearby to check for complicating factors and finding none, the Doctor simply moves the TARDIS to pick up his Captain's lonely body.

Revival imminent, he leans against the console to wait, arms folded, and so can see the look of profound relief that transforms Jack's face even as he heaves his first painful breath. “Doctor,” he breathes, and sits up, then pulls himself into the jumpseat next to him.

“Captain,” the Doctor replies. “Lonely place you ended up this time.”

Jack’s eyes have not left the Doctor's face, intent and hungry, and the Time Lord licks his suddenly dry lips, pinned in place by that dark gaze. As Jack stands, the Doctor straightens from his slouch as well; whatever Jack needs, he'll give it, but he will meet it on his feet. But Jack doesn't say anything else, just steps forward and reaches out to push his jacket from his shoulders, slides his braces down, and without releasing the Doctor from their staring match opens his trousers and shoves them down as far as they will go with the braces still caught on his arms.

It's not at all what he was expecting, today or any day. “Jack?” he asks, and curses his unsteady voice. “What's wrong?”

“Right now?” Jack's voice is distant, but there is a flash of abject pain in his eyes that makes the Doctor gasp. “Nothing. So shut up.” With one more step, Jack is pressed up against him, feet either side of the Doctor's, trapping him against the console. His hearts are beating a quick tattoo in his chest and his arms are all tangled up and arousal is making indifferent progress against fear and the anxious questions bubbling up. Jack has never _taken_ control like this before. The Doctor hands it over willingly or not at all, and fighting back is the only response he knows to someone trying to take him over; but he doesn't _want_ to fight Jack.

He presses his hands against his lover’s chest, tries one more time. “Jack, please.” He is still staring, but not seeing. “Whatever you need, I promise, but _please_ ,” he has the back of the Doctor's shirt pulled up now and the sudden burn of skin contact makes the Doctor cry out. “Jack!”

“This is what I need,” his Captain whispers. The pain is there in his eyes again. “Fear me, fight me, love me. Can you stop me?”

The way he says it, it’s not a rhetorical question at all. “Of course,” the Doctor answers, startled from his fear. “Do you need stopping?”

Jack closes his eyes. “You tell me.” His hands are making slow circles on the Doctor’s lower back and arse, hips pressing his erection firmly against the Doctor. Not what he had thought, then, not what he had been afraid of, and he is ashamed to have thought that of his Captain; Jack needs the safe space that he has provided, in his past and future both, for the Doctor.

As he wriggles, struggling to free an arm from his jacket, Jack exhales sharply and presses against him harder, eyes still closed. Finally free, still anxious but not afraid, the Doctor slides his hand up to the zipper of the light jacket Jack is wearing and reassures his lover, “If you do, I’ll stop you. You are safe here.” Jack groans, a strangely broken sound of soul-deep relief, and leans forward to capture his mouth. He is demanding, biting down on the Doctor’s lip until he opens his mouth in a gasp of pain, then thrusting his tongue inside, that ravishing heat making the Doctor go a bit weak in the knees as always. Perfectly willing to return the favor, the Doctor bites down on Jack’s tongue, enjoying the muffled cry this gets. One of Jack’s hands is pulling his jacket the rest of the way off, the other - the other is working its way between his arse and the console and he yelps as a finger pushes roughly into him. “Don’t you have any -”

“Right front trouser pocket,” Jack growls, cutting him off. The Doctor fishes out the small packet of lube, sets it on the console, then gives his lover a solid shove. Stepping back to keep his balance, Jack turns shocked eyes to his face, but the Doctor ignores any comment he might like to make and, access achieved, unfastens and yanks his belt off, opens his trousers and pushes them down to his knees. “Ah,” Jack says, enlightened, and kicks until they fall to his ankles. “Good, yes.”

“Don’t tell me you forgot,” the Doctor taunts. “Captain Jack Harkness, playboy extraordinaire, fails to take his trousers off for the first time in his life?”

“Details,” Jack replies, as he drops to his knees. “Shut up, busy.” Then there’s no more thought, just fireworks in his brain as he is engulfed in the wet fever heat of Jack’s mouth, that glorious tongue working its talented magic against his cock. He threads his fingers through his lover’s hair and presses experimentally. Jack pushes back and hums angrily, but doesn’t pull away, and it is, after all, that sort of day; the Doctor presses harder, and slides further in, bumping the back of his throat. Keeping a firm hold, he fucks Jack’s mouth, moaning as he begins to lose himself in the glorious heat of it. The choked noises Jack is making are delightful, part and parcel of their ongoing fight, and his warm hand is massaging the Doctor’s balls just this side of pain. Then a thick digit is pushing into his arse _again_ , still completely unlubricated.

“Fuck! Jack! See if I ever let you anywhere near that again!” He thrusts savagely into Jack’s mouth, but when he pulls back he is pushing himself further onto Jack’s thumb and the harsh friction of calloused thumb against very sensitive skin is uncomfortable but has a nervy sort of brilliance, sending jagged spikes of sensation sawing through him; Jack likes it rough but he rarely has, before. Pushes forward again, and then backwards, harder, and the deep shock of pleasure wrenches a long groan from him. “Ohhh… oh _yes_ -” He's ensnared, rocking back and forth, and Jack is pushing him further with every cycle, working tongue and lips with skill as he takes his cock deep, sucking hard as the Doctor presses himself back onto his lover's thumb again. “Captain!” he cries, having forgotten entirely that they were fighting. “Captain, I'm, oh, Rassilon -” His hand is still on Jack's head but no longer directing, and his own head is thrown back, staring unseeing at the shining ceiling, and just as he is about to come Jack pulls away from him entirely. “ _Jaaack!_ ” It's an undignified, indignant wail, but dignity is not what he cares about right now.

Wiping his mouth on his sleeve as he rises to his feet, Jack gives him a feral grin. “Don’t think you’re getting off that easy. You’re here now, I’m going to make it _count_.” He reaches to the Doctor’s right and shoves the scanner screen away, hooks a hand behind his neck and draws him in for a fierce kiss, teeth clashing, tongues battling for space, cutting off his protests.

Then, a little fuzzy on the details, the Doctor finds himself turned around and bent over a mostly clear spot on the console, arms folded beneath him, Jack’s large hand firm on his back holding him down. “Pretentious ape!” He tries to kick him but the trousers around his ankles don’t allow enough freedom of motion. “Whatever this is about, Jack -”

“I said, shut up.” Jack’s voice is hard and brittle; something is going on here that he doesn’t understand but _needs_ to. It’s not dangerous, exactly; he can’t imagine Jack truly harming him except under immense duress, and there has been no indication of that. But something has hurt Jack terribly, and it feels like he is extracting payment for it.

“If it’s something I did -”

With a dark laugh, Jack mutters, “Did, didn’t do, will do, who cares.” Then his hand comes down hard on the Doctor’s arse and he yells in shock. “That’s one,” Jack sounds like he is struggling to speak, “for every -” _Smack!_ His hand lands on the other side this time, and he’s far too _good_ at this, it hurts like blazes, “century!” _Smack!_ Again where the first one fell and the Doctor howls and tries to push himself upright, outraged and starting to wonder if this is where the stopping comes in, right up until Jack says, “That you left me alone and waiting!” His hand comes down again, the hardest yet, but the Doctor has lost all his fight. He yells again, head dropping back to his arms, because it does hurt but it’s nothing compared to the thought that Jack has spent _four hundred years_ waiting, unable to find him for whatever reason. Probably wondering if he was already dead and had just forgotten to say goodbye.

Jack’s hand lifts from his back, but he doesn’t try to get up; it is cold and empty without his warming touch and he deserves it, even if he hasn’t yet committed the offense at issue. Getting smacked for things he hasn’t done yet, not exactly new. There are tears in his eyes, he realises; one drips down his nose onto the console. _Sorry, I’m sorry_ , he thinks to the TARDIS, but she is all gentle forgiveness which he doesn’t deserve right now either.

Then Jack’s hand is back, fingers stroking lightly over sensitised skin. His touch usually burns but it’s so much worse now; the Doctor shudders and presses back into his hand, hoping a firmer touch will feel less like fiery needles in his nerves. It helps, a bit. He closes his eyes and sniffles, and Jack runs a finger up his spine. “Can you still stop me?” he asks softly, sounding as though he may have cried too.

Not wanting to voice the answer to that question, the Doctor skips ahead to the next. “I don’t want to stop you.”

“Alright.” His lover takes a deep breath, and so does the Doctor; moving on. A breath, and then another, and then he feels slick fingers pressing slowly into him, and he shifts back, willing to take whatever Jack wishes to inflict on him. But his Captain pins him down with his other hand again and takes his time, caressing the inflamed skin of his arse with his thumb as he works. The burning is starting to fade, thankfully, and gradually the pleasure drowns out the pain which feels a little like cheating; but it's his Captain doing this to him so it's alright, for now it's alright.

As he relaxes, finally, he moans in pleasure, and then he can't stop, Jack's fingers sliding smoothly into him, hand warm and solid on his back, anchored here where all of time whirls about this Fixed Point at the centre. “Jack, I'm, oh, _yes_ , right there, I'm -” He's not having a lot of success getting words out around the moaning he can't seem to quiet.

Pulling his fingers out entirely, Jack says a bit unsteadily, “One thing at a time,” and presses back in with three; the Doctor’s eyes roll back in his head as he relaxes into the glorious stretch, words still bubbling up but failing to form completely. “I should have known it was a lost cause, telling you to shut up,” his lover remarks fondly, voice catching, stroking his back. The hand lifts, then there is a warm finger tracing around his balls and the Doctor rocks back onto Jack's fingers helplessly. When it moves to stroke lightly up his cock he chokes, breath getting confused whether it's coming or going. _Coming_ , he thinks deliriously, that has to be the right word here. “Ready?” his Captain asks, as if there is some reason to doubt.

“Yes, yes!” he gasps out. “Please!” He has never been more ready for anything in his life.

As Jack pulls his fingers away, the Doctor braces his elbows firmly and lifts his head to look back at his lover. Yes, his darkened eyes are red-rimmed: he had been crying. A fine pair they make. He has dropped his jacket at some point but is still wearing his shirt, trousers and pants around his ankles, and he is staring back at the Doctor now, need and love and apology all at once on his face.

“Captain,” the Doctor whispers, swallows past the tightness in his throat, answers the need he sees with his own. “Please.” Jack shuts his eyes for a moment, breathes deeply, then he steps forward, hand reaching out to settle lightly on the Doctor's left hip, the heat of him radiating. The head of his cock is pressing against the Doctor, smooth and weighty, a glowing ember of that fire within, burning without pain, and if he just shifted back ever so slightly - but he doesn't, holds himself still and waits for his Captain. It is remarkably difficult, and he is whining in the back of his throat and rocking back and forth just a little and seriously considering giving up when Jack finally moves, one strong slow push that continues for a small eternity, filling him with fire as he cries out with a noise he's not sure he has ever made before, guttural and desperate and pulled straight from his diaphragm. And then Jack is still again, gripping his hip tightly, panting. “Gods of mercy,” his lover breathes, and this time it is a prayer. “Doctor.”

Elbows braced, head fallen to the console between his forearms, the Doctor mumbles, “Things to do, Captain,” and pushes back against Jack hoping to start him moving. Gasping as he suddenly does, he clenches around Jack's cock and savors the deep groan this wins him. They're not going to last long, or at least he's not.

“You,” Jack says breathlessly, as he speeds up, finding a rhythm, “are extraordinarily mouthy today. Next time I'm putting your mouth to better use.”

“Who put you in charge?” the Doctor snaps back, unwilling to concede now they're fighting again.

He pushes back hard and groans as Jack yells, “Fuck!” Taking a breath, Jack answers, “How should I know, I haven't seen you in four hundred years!”

“Fascinating welcome,” the Doctor tries to say, but it trails off into a moan as Jack reaches around and slides his hand down the Doctor's cock. “Cheating,” he gasps, “oh, gods, _Jack_ -” his voice an octave higher by the end and then he's coming, forehead pressed hard against the console, his cries drowning out Jack's response, Jack's hand coaxing everything from him he can give. He sighs at the last, and mumbles, “Well, you have me now,” and feels Jack tense, probably bruising his hip. He's nearly silent as he comes.

Slumping briefly across the Doctor's back, he pulls himself away almost immediately and steps back. The loss of contact, of his heat and stability, is terrible, and the Doctor twists around, gets tangled up, and falls to the floor with a thump as his knees buckle, reigniting the tender skin of his arse. Eyes wide, he stares up at his lover as Jack pulls his trousers up.

“I'm sorry,” Jack says, not meeting his eyes. “I'll go. I just wanted…” He trails off. “I'm sorry.”

 _What?_ “Sorry for that imbecilic suggestion, I hope!” What can have done this, is it _his_ fault his Captain is in this unlikely state? Demoralized, dejected, lonely and so certain of rejection that he simply took what he needed and means now to go; he has always been good at hiding things but his defenses are down now and it is painful to see. “You're not going anywhere, not like this.”

Eyes narrowing, Jack suddenly loses the dejected slump. “You going to stop me?” He sounds only mildly curious, but his right hand is creeping toward his Vortex manipulator.

Alright, wrong approach. Because yes, he can and will if it seems necessary, but it won't gain him anything here to threaten. “No, no,” he soothes, standing up, pulling his trousers up so he can move quickly if he needs to, “but please, don't go. Tell me what's wrong.”

“What _isn't_ wrong,” his Captain mutters, bitterly. “I mostly can't, Doctor, you know that. _Spoilers_.” He spits the word out venomously.

“Fine, that's, it's fine, Jack, but please stay.” He reaches out, slowly and cautiously as to a wild animal, and lays his hand against his lover's cheek. “Stay with me for a little while.” Jack's eyes are deep wells of pain again and he looks desperately alone, even standing so close; forlorn and apparently forgotten by the Doctor's own future self.

He says nothing else, but nods, and leans against the Doctor when he takes his hand and leads him away.

-+-+-+-

Lying tangled together in the Doctor’s bed, it is no less confusing. Watching over his lover whilst he sleeps has left the Doctor little recourse to the memories that still haunt him, may haunt him for the rest of his life; all the days of his pale, still body lying here, nearly five years of days whilst the Doctor played god with the universe. When they had stumbled back here, leaning on each other, Jack had offered no further answers, just shaking his head and falling into an exhausted slumber which, combined with the aggressive lovemaking previous, was so completely uncharacteristic that the Doctor had been unwilling to leave him alone at all lest he awake in some state dangerous to himself.

So he waits, which he has always been terrible at. Jack, somehow, has learned how, but clearly even he has his limits.

When Jack awakes, less than two hours later, he still looks exhausted. He won’t sleep it off fully until he feels safe; but if he doesn’t feel safe in the TARDIS, then where? The Doctor tries not to take it personally, but it is, of course. He just hasn’t done it yet. The TARDIS hums gently in the background, paying minimal attention to him, and he considers just leaving the whole thing to her. She and Jack get on well, after all.

“I’m sorry,” Jack says quietly, without the slightest loosening of the arm that has held the Doctor to him whilst he slept. “I’m sorry for forcing myself on you, and for dragging you into this at all.”

“Forcing - Jack!” The Doctor turns in his lover’s arms to stare at him. “You didn’t force yourself on me. Is that what you were apologising for?” Jack nods, eyes shuttered, face pale and drawn with regret. “You’ve committed no offense against me. It seemed clear enough, what you were asking, what you needed.”

Looking slightly easier in himself, Jack nonetheless suggests, “I hurt you.”

“Well. A bit.” His lover raises an eyebrow, and the Doctor admits, “Yes, fine, it hurt; _gods_ , Jack, you must practice that…” He squirms, and then Jack’s hand is there, smoothing firmly across his backside, soothing away the remembered sting, and he closes his eyes even as he presses into his lover’s touch, feeling his face burn.

“Such a pretty shade of red it turns you.” Quietly appreciative, Jack’s voice makes him open his eyes again. “Yes,” he says then, lips twitching. “I have had a bit of practice.”

“Understatement of the century, I’ll bet,” the Doctor grumbles. “Oh, Jack, why would I… Four hundred years? You couldn’t find me at all?” He regrets his words immediately as his Captain’s face closes off and he pulls back, sits up facing away from him.

“I know where you are,” he says bitterly. “I can’t go there. You think _you're_ a complicated spatiotemporal event; do you know how many of me there are already on Earth during your favorite centuries? Almost never less than two, for nearly two hundred years. Three, disturbingly often. There’s been four, which destabilized the Rift. My misspent youth, taking its toll; I’m useless to you if you’re on Earth. And you’re unreachable to me.” His voice is bleak. The Doctor sits up too, lays a hand on Jack’s back, but he just hunches up tighter. “I didn’t think anything of it the first century; that’s how my life has to be. By two hundred years I was worrying a bit, but your driving is terrible, so who knows. But three hundred was too much, when you said you'd come back, so I started looking for you. And you know how that goes; you can find the Doctor, but it’s never the Doctor you’re looking for. So I finally… Once I found out…” He takes a breath, reaches back blindly for the Doctor’s hand and the Doctor grips his tightly. “I hoped you were still doing the rescuing thing. Tried… a few things… But it was always someone else. So I teleported myself into deep space.” _Where no one but you could possibly find me_ , the Doctor finishes for him.

Breath leaving him in a wretched sound of pain, the Doctor shifts forward onto his knees, presses up against Jack’s back, wraps arms around and pulls him back against his chest.

“I’m sorry,” Jack whispers into his shirt. “There’s so much wrong with suicide as communication, I know.”

“Jack,” he says, cheek pressed to the heat of his eternal guiding star, “my Jack.”

“Yes,” Jack sighs, relaxing into him, “that’s what I wanted. Just to… remember.”

So the Doctor holds him, reminds him, builds him back up; all the while wondering if he is offering false hope, wondering what he becomes in the future, that he could leave Jack without the consideration of a goodbye. “Whatever the reason,” he promises, later, “it can't be that I mean to, Jack, it _can't_ be that I stop loving you.” And although he truly can't imagine his words being false, they taste like ashes in his mouth.

But Jack smiles at him, sorrowful but sincere, and kisses him gently. “Stay,” the Doctor urges again, “for a little while.”

Laying his face against the Doctor's neck, warm and comforting and intensely real, his Captain agrees, “For a little while.”

Whatever it is he will do that ends with Jack, in extremis, searching him out by throwing himself into the suffocating emptiness of space, he regrets, he regrets most grievously; but he doesn't regret today.

-+-+-+-  


_Maybe there's a God above_  
_But all I've ever learned from love_  
_Was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you_  
_And it's not a cry that you hear at night_  
_It's not somebody who's seen the light_  
_It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_  
  
_( -Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen)_

 


	11. Leaves me feeling drained

“Well,” the Doctor comments, blinking owlishly, some few moments after stepping from the TARDIS at his next destination, “I was not expecting that. Although now that I think about it, I’m not quite sure why not.”

It is a rather standard jungle, for the most part, not that they ever _look_ very similar to each other; far too many ways for life to fill in the immense potential of such an environment. But there are certainly repeating elements. Such as very large trees, one of which appears to have caught his Captain. He is barely visible beneath the vines; the Doctor probably wouldn’t have noticed him until he revived if the TARDIS hadn’t managed such a precise landing. Reaching back, he pats her door. “Well done, old girl. Now how do you suppose… I don’t think it’s going to want to give him up.” He grins. “Who would, eh? I don’t either.”

Stepping forward, he reaches out to prod gingerly at the vines. “See here, that’s my Captain. Would you mind awfully giving him back?” He trods warningly on the tendril creeping along the ground toward him. “None of that, just trying to be decent. I’ll have him back, whether you like it or not. I don’t think he’s enjoying it.” Unfortunately it is a rather stupid tree, and unlikely to be persuaded to give up the best source of food it has ever encountered or ever will; just smart enough to have learned not to let go of him when he is dead, apparently.

“Some trees,” the Doctor mutters, turning back to the TARDIS, “are very pleasant companions. _Some_ trees are scholars, or heroes, or poets. Mindless bloodsucker…” Kaashtra, that’s where they are, the carnivorous trees of Kaashtra. There is something else about them he can’t recall at the moment. “Heat? Cold? Bright light?” he muses. “Although I’d rather, well. It’s too stupid to be malicious. Rather not injure it too badly.” He is feeling that itching between his shoulder blades that signifies Jack’s imminent revival; maybe he will know. Ducking into the TARDIS he grabs a cutting torch, the first thing to hand that a tree might be afraid of, then returns to wait for Jack.

First breath coming back out as a low groan, Jack doesn’t look much more alive than before to the Doctor’s eye, despite his comforting blaze. “Finally,” he croaks. “Doctor, get me out of here.” He coughs, and swallows, and then those brilliant blue eyes are staring out at the Doctor from the tree’s prison.

Momentarily diverted, the Doctor asks, “How do you know it's me right away? It isn't usually, I shouldn't think.” The recognition has been immediate, the last couple times.

“The TARDIS,” Jack answers tightly. “I can always hear her. This isn’t _comfortable_ , Doctor, please?”

“Yes, sorry. I was hoping to avoid hurting it too badly, do you happen to know…?”

Jack heaves an exasperated sigh. “It’s hurting _me_ fairly badly. Anhydrous copper sulfate would do it, if you have some lying about…? Some in my pocket, lot of good that's done. Any desiccants or contact herbicides? No, didn’t think so. Never come prepared, that’s the Doctor for you.” Holding up the cutting torch, the Doctor raises his brows, and Jack bares his teeth in response. “Then get on with it! Maybe you forgot, but it’s killing me. _Again_.”

Finding himself low on mercy in the face of his Captain’s suffering, the Doctor does. Lighting up the torch, he gives the tree fair warning. “Let him go, or I’ll free him myself.”

There’s no response from the tree. “It’s a _tree_ ,” Jack points out angrily.

“I’ve met some quite lovely trees,” the Doctor replies distractedly, examining the maze of vines imprisoning Jack for the best place to cut. “Do shut up for a moment.” Identifying an arc that contains at least a quarter of the relevant vines and minimal collateral damage, he begins cutting. There is a rustle as the vines attempt to contract out of the way, and Jack howls as he is jostled. “Sorry! I’m hurrying.” As he moves on to another set of vines, the tree seems to have come around to his point of view and begins a general retreat, leaving Jack gritting his teeth in pain. The Doctor switches off and drops the torch, pulling free the cut ends which are rather disturbingly sticky. It’s then that he remembers the other thing about the carnivorous trees of Kaashtra; the sap tends to have an aphrodisiac effect on humanoids.

Shortly before he comes free Jack gasps in relief, and as the last vines let him go the Doctor catches him as he slumps forward. There are a number of bloody puncture wounds on his back where he had been in contact with the tree. Kicking the torch back toward the TARDIS in case the tree needs a reminder, he pulls Jack back also and settles to the ground, cradling him against his chest, protecting his wounds from the damp ground.

For a few minutes he just lies limply, face pressed to the Doctor’s jacket, which is far more telling than any words he might say in anger or pain. Like the Doctor, Jack uses words as a first line of defense; why the Doctor disallows them, on occasion. “Sorry,” he says eventually, not yet moving. “Exsanguination; always -”

“Takes it out of you. Heard that one.” The Doctor smiles down at his lover.

“Mmph. Leaves me feeling drained?”

Reluctantly amused, the Time Lord snorts. “That’s terrible, too.”

“I’ll let you know when I think of a better one.” Still muffled by the Doctor’s jacket, Jack is starting to sound better. “Thanks for the extraction.”

“Always,” the Doctor replies gravely. “As much always as I have.”

His lover mumbles something that sounds like, “’s more than you think,” which the Doctor is not quite sure how to take, then pulls himself away and sits back on his heels. “Ugh. Well there’s nothing here I need, and there’s nothing at all I need more than a shower. Shall we?” He hauls himself to his feet, reaches down to help the Doctor up.

Unable to resist any longer, under the circumstances, as it were, the Time Lord makes a show of giving Jack a look-over as he stands. “Captain, I like to think I am a broad-minded person.” His lover is eyeing him skeptically. “And I feel I am remarkably tolerant of your notably undiscriminating choices of companion for… certain activities.”

“Got something against aliens?” Jack smirks at him, but the Doctor ignores his comment.

“But I do generally expect you to stay within your own phylum, at least.” He raises his brows invitingly, and watches confusion be replaced by indignation on his lover’s face.

“I was _not_ \- I was not trying to have _sex_ with the _tree!_ What do you take me for?”

“Then why aren’t you wearing trousers?” The Doctor watches in amused fascination as Jack stares at him, a dull flush creeping over his face. Blushing, his Captain is _blushing!_

Abruptly Jack turns aside. “Well it wasn’t _the tree_ I was trying to have sex with,” he mutters. “Can we go now?”

Following him into the TARDIS, not too closely, the Doctor admires the view, important portions of anatomy thankfully having escaped damage. “Bondage experiment gone awry?” he suggests innocently. “You know, the carnivorous trees of Kaashtra are famous all across this sector.”

The blush has made it to Jack’s ears, now. He doesn’t turn around. “ _No_ ,” he denies, categorically. “You know what, nevermind. Shut up. You’re such an arse, I don’t know why I even bother missing you.” He stalks away up the stairs, the Doctor still unabashedly watching.

“Shall I come help you wash off the sap?” The look Jack shoots him before disappearing is venomous. The Doctor sends them into the Vortex and waits, leaning against the console.

Forty eight seconds later, Jack's head reappears around the corner. He is looking slightly less put out, although the blush hasn't faded. “Only if you're going to lick it off.”

The Doctor shakes his head. “Mildly toxic to Time Lords, I'm afraid. But feel free to try some yourself.”

“I have,” his Captain growls, and disappears again. Laughing, the Doctor settles down to tinkering.

-+-+-+-

He had run a bit of an errand before he had come to get Jack again. Not at all sure the impulse made sense, still he had wanted some way to give his lover a memory, a token, something to add to his collection of reminders, that he might face the long years to come and remember that he had been truly beloved. Finding an opportunity to bring it up is proving somewhat more difficult.

Jack is still grumpy after his shower; perhaps it had been a bit too much teasing. He disappears deep into the TARDIS without even stopping in the kitchen, which is very unlike him. Making an effort, the Doctor fetches dinner from a cafe on New Paris that he recalls Jack waxing lyrical about and then goes in search of him. Whatever happened, he can’t be simply let to starve himself.

“Bugger off,” Jack says when he finds him, sitting at the edge of a cliff which has apparently been lurking all unsuspected within his TARDIS.

“I brought food. I didn’t make it,” he adds, anticipating the next comment.

Closing his mouth, Jack eyes him consideringly, then nods. Over the course of the meal his mood visibly improves; the Doctor resists asking any questions, lest he lose all his progress. After finishing off the sizeable meal - the Doctor is familiar with his appetite after these sorts of situations - Jack admits, “It’s just really fucking embarrassing. Sorry to take it out on you.”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

Shrugging a shoulder in acknowledgement, Jack continues staring out over the cliff. “I let myself get distracted, is what it comes down to. I hire on as a guard for research teams, sometimes, so I'm the one who was supposed to be doing the saving. I never make them pay the death bonus,” he adds in an aside, “got a friend who makes sure it’s filed as _activities exceeding contract_. But I do have a well known weakness for brilliant, stubborn people.” He glances at the Doctor, lips quirking up a bit, and the Doctor can’t help preening, just a little. “Unfortunately rather traumatic experience for Hisk, I expect, though as far as I know he ran when I told him to. I hope everyone else made it away alright. Suppose they’ll all be rather confused if they get around to sending someone back for my body.”

Leaning over to bump his lover’s shoulder, the Doctor says, “I suppose most people who die in terribly embarrassing ways don’t have to live with it later.”

“It’s a curse,” Jack agrees, with a notable lack of levity. “Not even close to the most embarrassing one I’ve got, either…” Then he presses his lips together with a wary look at the Doctor.

“You don’t owe me anything, Jack,” he says gently. “Answers or anything else.”

Shaking his head, Jack says, “It’s really not a question of owing, anymore. Just that we… always come back.” He stands, and the Doctor follows suit.

Hesitantly, he asks, “Do I? Have you… seen me since last time I rescued you?”

Jack's smile feels like the sun breaking through a cloud. “Yes. You were right, it wasn't… Just timelines.” It is the least specific possible explanation, but all he needed was the answer. He doesn't need to believe anymore that he could become someone who would leave Jack wondering for four hundred years on purpose; it is a great relief.

Without allowing himself to second-guess his plan any further, he shoves a hand into his pocket and pulls out a small bag. “I got you something,” he mumbles, and holds it out. “I know you don't carry much with you, but I thought… that chain you had, or maybe it's small enough to tuck into your cuff.” He gently touches Jack's wrist strap with one finger after depositing the bag in his hand, then rubs his hands together, unaccountably nervous. “If you wanted.”

Bemused smile on his face, Jack shakes the contents into his hand. The gleaming cabochon that falls out is barely bigger than his thumbnail but it catches the light and gleams like fire. Peering at it curiously, he asks, “What is it? Looks like a fancy data chip.”

“Ah, yes, well, sort of. It's, silly name really, it's called a simmered agate. I suppose it is simmered, sort of, but it's not an agate, it's - well the important part is it's much harder. About 8.5 on the Mohs scale, so it doesn't get scratched from every little thing.” Jack seems unusually willing to let him natter on right now, just watching him from the corner of his eye as he turns the agate in the light. The twisting layers of gold in the clear stone scatter the light wildly. “It starts out as a stripy pink sort of stone, a naturally gold-bearing crystal, and then they… cook it, I suppose. Including a strong electromagnetic current. All the layers get aligned, and now it's a data crystal, yes, but -”

“Hey!” Jack interrupts him, bringing the agate closer to his face, tilting it carefully. “There's a picture.”

With an embarrassing level of completely unnecessary nervousness, the Doctor says quietly, “It's mostly random how they turn out, of course, but there's some art to it as well. I thought… it looked like Starmouth, on Hysskp.” Despite the trauma Jack had been dealing with, it had been a happy time for, he thinks, both of them.

“Hadn't figured you for a closet romantic,” Jack says wryly, but he is giving the Doctor a tender half smile. Then it turns into a grin, and he chuckles. “Oh, come here, you.” He holds out his arm, and the Doctor slips underneath it, pressing close to his lover. “You thought I was going to laugh at you. I won't. I love it.” Holding the Doctor close, he kisses him briefly and adds, “What's the occasion?”

“Just a reminder,” the Doctor says, relieved and basking in his warmth. “For when there's… nothing left to wait for.” But of course, as much as his life has revolved around Jack lately, Jack's life rarely revolves around him. “Sorry, I didn't mean… There's a whole universe out there. But when I'm gone.”

Jack's face goes blank for a moment, then he shakes his head. “Right,” he mutters, “you're still… how does she do this?” But before the Doctor can voice any of the questions he suddenly has, Jack kisses him again, deep and distractingly, until his interior monologue of questions has been derailed. Then he pulls away and says simply, “I'll cherish it.”

“Alright,” the Doctor says breathlessly, and what in Time is the point of a respiratory bypass if he can still be kissed breathless? Perhaps it's a personal failing; or perhaps it's just Jack. He decides to believe the latter. “There's data on it too, pictures mostly. Travelogue. The TARDIS helped. Rather fiddly to write to but easy enough to read. I just thought… organic memory on these timescales is so… fallible.”

“Well,” Jack replies, “you would know.” Which is fair, and true, but hurts nonetheless. Grimacing apologetically, Jack holds him tight against all the coming years.

-+-+-+-

As a point of interest, it turns out it's not just Jack who can kiss him breathless, so he is back to the personal failing hypothesis.

“Are we done with the Captain Jack specials, do you think?” The TARDIS is not a notably good conversationalist even when she tries, though, and he doesn't get much more than a vast amusement in reply to his query. Leaning against the railing, he watches the chaos outside on the large scanner screen. “Oh yes, very funny, you're not the one who has to retrieve your drugged lover from a, a, an _orgy_ that he's enjoying far too much. It's always when he goes _back_ that there's trouble… At least I've still got all my clothes this time.” But it's no good, it _is_ funny, and he holds a hand over his face as he laughs helplessly, sure he is blushing an alarming shade of red. “And River’s! Do you think she'll want them back?”

He puts them in the laundry, and folds them away carefully when they're clean, just in case.

After that there is a long period of Jack's timeline he has no access to; the TARDIS won't even try, and when he insists the turbulence is so bad they end up crashing to the ground on Mars, of all places. He takes it as a warning and apologises, and spends a few days on the maintenance he has been neglecting. It's hard work balancing all these relationships; what was he thinking? The TARDIS is unnecessarily amused.

“Everyone's a critic,” he says fondly; underneath her tart opinions he can feel the love she also carries for Jack and River. It's not him in the middle with a complicated mess of relationships, it's somehow all of them together, even though they rarely _are_ all together. “You just love us because we're temporally complex.” _No other redeeming features_ , is the gist of her agreement, and he raps gently on the console. “No need to be like that, dear heart.”

-+-+-+-

Eventually he finds Jack again, of course. This time there is no choice but to dematerialise him straight out of his predicament; the Doctor suspects he has taken up dangerous air sports again. It is quite difficult to spot him, when first the TARDIS materialises nearby, because he has somehow ended up halfway up a large, angular tree with one arm spectacularly mangled and trapped - what first arrested his fall, the Doctor suspects - and his neck wedged sideways between two branches, effectively hung again. There is no parachute, no wreckage, and the Doctor tries not to think too hard about why no one has yet come looking for him. Reentering the TARDIS, he pats the console. “Work your magic, old girl. Can’t avoid it every time.”

When Jack appears on the console room floor it is obvious he has seen better days; clothed in a well torn flight suit, neck badly bruised and probably still broken, left arm rather resembling a collection of puzzle pieces that are meant to add up to an arm. His hair contains noticeably more silver than the last time the Doctor saw him, and he suspects he has crossed his own timeline now and is past the time he spent with Jack on Bellacosa. What that signifies, he is not certain - although he has guesses - but it was awkward catching up with Jack after Ophicche and it is sure to be awkward this time too.

It seems it will be a while before he revives. “Up you get, Captain,” the Doctor says, gathering up his lover's body, shattered arm held as carefully as he can, head tucked against his shoulder. “Can't just leave you lying here.” It is never easy, carrying a man Jack's height up the stairs, and not for the first time the Doctor regrets some elements of the otherwise quite marvelous interior design sense of his TARDIS. She is apologetic. “Nevermind,” he says, “we'll manage.” He pauses in the corridor, suddenly unsure where he is taking Jack, but she presents him with the door to his own bedroom, the one he had shared with Jack all those years - for a certain value of _shared_. Eyeing it with mild dread, he asks, “ _That’s_ where he’d prefer to wake up? I know that’s not my preference you’re following… Oh, very well.”

He gets his Captain settled comfortably, relieved to see the arm is already beginning to knit back together; debates removing the flight suit and eventually decides that yes, clothing one has been hanging about in a tree wearing for… who knows how long, isn’t comfortable to wake up in and should be removed. Either it was a very barren tree or the TARDIS has managed to leave behind whatever wildlife must surely have been investigating the new addition; either way, good. Precise and accurate, that’s his TARDIS. She gives him a somewhat incongruous impression of _keeping a healthy balance_ , which he agrees with absently until it suddenly occurs to him what, or _whom_ , she’s balancing her accuracy against. “Oi! As if you’d be going anywhere at all without me!” There is no hint at all of concession in her agreement. Huffily he settles down next to his Captain; and then is at a loss.

He has tried so hard to avoid this situation; lying here whilst Jack slept had been bad enough, but now his Captain lies dead beside him, that eternal fire damped and dark, and there is nothing to stop him remembering. All the increasingly desperate vigils he sat here, waiting for the only safety remaining to him to return; all the time before that when he had lost himself and Jack’s body had simply been a fixture in his life, the living man there only to cater to his occasional whims.

Climbing back out of bed he paces, rubs his face, tugs at his hair. “Got to stop this,” he tells himself angrily. “It's entirely unseemly. One can't go about falling apart all over people busy recovering from their own deaths, and one oughtn't be afraid of one's own bed!” Guilt had driven the Doctor to take up this path, but it is no excuse for inflicting that guilt on Jack. He will only start dreading being rescued at all, and then where will they be. The Doctor, stubborn as a mule, and the Captain, always again to encounter the worst of life; eventually all they would have is hatred and resentment, and how then should he return to wake his own Jack, still waiting for him…?

Failing, failing again, why can’t he _stop thinking_? Why isn’t Jack back yet?

Attention returned to the here and now, the Doctor realises with a terrible shock that he _is;_ he’s missed it again, somehow. Spinning around, he raises wide eyes to the bed. The moment Jack's eyes meet his, he knows with a terrible finality that he is dead in Jack's timeline; he was half expecting it but he is not prepared for the blow, not at all. His Captain is hiding it well, but there is a wistfulness about him, a distance that hasn't been there before. He will be just a ghost, now, for as long as he continues this search for an impossible absolution.

“I'm sorry,” his default response to stress it seems, “I'm sorry, I'll go, I don't mean to…” He's not sure what. _Cause you pain?_ Certainly true. _Remind you of your loss?_ Strange sentiment when it is his own death he confronts in his lover's eyes.

“You'll go on,” Jack says gently, neither promise nor prophecy but a once and future fact of their tangled timelines. “But you don't have to right away. There will always be a place for you with me, I said.” He holds out his hand. Searching his face, the Doctor perches on the edge of the bed and tentatively reaches out to take it.

-+-+-+-

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Yes, I will eventually be posting at least one of these terribly embarrassing adventures as a separate story. They just don't fit in well to a story that is otherwise strictly Doctor/Jack, from the Doctor's POV._


	12. Under one of those stones

The wistfulness is always there now, but Jack is still glad to see him each time; it is easy to forget the passing time outside their meetings.

He has reached another flickery instability in Jack's timeline, some environmental condition not permitting a true return to life. Expecting space again, the Doctor is surprised to find himself on Sundara Aintu, an Earth colony, in the 38th century. He steps out of the TARDIS into exactly the sort of reddish sunlight that always results in a terrible moment of nostalgia, and looks around. They have landed to the side of a well-maintained fenced park, no one in sight, stones laid on the ground in regular ranks; the Doctor realises with dismay that he is to be a graverobber today.

“Where's Jack when you need him, eh?” he mutters sarcastically. That squareness gun he had would be just the ticket, but the Doctor last saw it in River's possession; though, well. That hardly bears thinking about. And who knows when she nicked it from the TARDIS, anyway, but even if he still has it… Something else, he's got a big brain, can think of five ways to solve a problem before breakfast.

Fiddling with his screwdriver, the Doctor laments the lack of a _move dirt_ setting. Possibly he should look into some general de-mat functionality next upgrade. Digging by hand is a terrible option, difficult and remarkably awkward when noticed. And there are all the stones on top; all identical, they look laser cut and very few have any markings on them whatsoever. Whatever it was happened, Jack seems to have ended up thoroughly and expeditiously buried in a mass grave. Caught up in helping some cause or another, he shouldn't wonder. His Captain never does leave before he's done all he can; works himself to death, over and over again.

The Doctor nearly jumps out of his skin as a voice comes from behind him. “Did you know someone who died in Vannam?” Whirling around, screwdriver held defensively in front of him, the Doctor finds himself confronting a slight young man, dressed in worn clothing and holding nothing but a spade, set against his boot. That, along with the pruning shears tucked into his belt, suggest groundskeeper, and the Doctor straightens up, slightly embarrassed. He tugs his jacket down, tucks away his screwdriver, and nods.

“Yes. Well, sort of.” People come up with the most difficult questions, all unknowing. “I think so,” he settles on, looking around at the mostly unmarked stones. It is no true impediment to his finding Jack, but he supposes it to be a problem for most people.

The groundskeeper nods sympathetically. “It can be like that. Most aren’t marked, but you’re welcome to look around.” He touches his hands together briefly in a gesture of well-wishing, and wanders off, inspecting the clearances around the stones.

Digging is right out, then.

Trans-mat scoop, that's what he needs. Take dirt out, rescue Jack, put dirt back. Too bad he doesn't have one. That's three: fourth idea? Excavators are not a different idea than digging, they're just bigger. He sighs, and wanders until he comes to Jack’s grave. The stone isn't marked. Without intervention, he would lie here, anonymous and unsuspected, until some geologic event in the far future uncovered him, or a river’s changing course eroded the ground, or someone needed the land more than unnamed, unmourned, ancient remains. And meanwhile what should be burning strong and steady, a linchpin at the center of Time, would be compromised. Perhaps he has, as Jack suggested once, been co-opted as a sort of universal corrective mechanism.

Far-fetched, but odder things have happened to him.

Absently curious, he fetches the sonic screwdriver back out and scans the grave, and is surprised to find Jack is only at a depth of about thirty centimetres. No digging required then, just shifting a great bloody slab of stone. An extremely hasty mass grave, with the right technology. Nodding to the groundskeeper, the Doctor slips away, back to the TARDIS to search the storage rooms and wait for night, which seems an appropriate time to be a graverobber.

By the insufficient light of several tiny moons, the faint smell of night-blooming flowers in his nose, the Doctor clamps the antigrav module he spent a small portion of the afternoon rigging up to the stone atop Jack and switches it on. Nudging the power up carefully, he floats it a few inches above the grass and pushes it just to the side, and there is Jack, swathed in a white shroud, lying in another precisely cut depression beneath where the stone had rested. After reaching down to uncover Jack's face, the Doctor finds his hands tumbling nervously again and attempts to still them by stuffing them in his pockets; it’s only that Jack looks very dead, unusually so. The morbid surroundings, which he has really been trying not to think about. And the shroud doesn’t help.

But it is a mercifully short wait; not three minutes after he lifts the stone, Jack revives, Time settling back into place with a relief the Doctor feels down to his bones. His eyes snap open but his first breath is constrained by the shroud. “Doctor,” he sighs, with an unflattering lack of enthusiasm, as his eyes find the Doctor's face peering down at him from where he is crouched on the grass.

“Lovely night?” the Doctor tries, but Jack just shakes his head.

“It’s really not. Could you help with this?”

“Sorry, sorry.” He reaches down to pull at the cloth, but is stymied. “It's wrapped. Got a knife?” His Captain gives him a distinctly unimpressed look, tilting his head pointedly to indicate his lack of access to any potential knives. “Ah, right.”

“Defabricator?” Jack suggests with a rather ghastly attempt at a grin. However he ended up here, it must have been awful to leave his Captain so far from his usual self.

“Nevermind, just get you out of there.” Hopping down into the shallow grave, the Doctor simply hauls Jack up in his arms, stubbornly ignoring his newly ignited brilliance, and sets him on his feet. “There.” He finds the end and unwraps his lover; he is dressed in wide trousers and a bright shirt that have seen better days, under the shroud.

Jack takes a deep breath, then sighs. “Barefoot again. Don't people need shoes in the afterlife?”

“I've certainly preferred shoes in all my lives,” the Doctor replies, willing to follow Jack's lead although he is not sure of the direction; his Captain is neither cheerful nor morose, not angry, not obviously looking for distraction.

Turning away to trudge toward the TARDIS, not looking around at all, Jack comments, “I've had plenty of lives where I never wore shoes at all.” It is such an unexpected blow that a grunt of pain escapes him, but Jack doesn't pause.

No longer sure of his purpose, the Doctor lets him go, busies himself replacing the stone carefully, not a blade of grass out of place to betray his efforts. It's not half enough to occupy his thoughts, gradually running deeper and deeper into well-worn tracks. It has been centuries for Jack, but it may never be enough for him to forget the years the Doctor held him prisoner; certainly the Doctor will never forget. Even in light of his last visit to Bellacosa, some of what he had done is nearly unthinkable. He had not, after all, done it to a man in his right mind and under his own control. And as large as his actions on the personal scale loom in his mind, they were by far the smaller part of the harm he had done. As he returns to the TARDIS his steps are slow with dread, wondering if Jack has finally understood how truly abhorrent his actions were all those years, how unforgivable. Perhaps now, older than the Doctor, he feels himself able to stand as judge over a Time Lord’s crimes.

But Jack is simply standing in the doorway, looking out over the graveyard. The Doctor turns and stands next to him silently, waiting, counting each breath. _15… 16… 17…_

“My son is there,” Jack says quietly, “under one of those stones.”

It is so far from what the Doctor was expecting that it takes him nearly a minute to redirect his thoughts sufficiently to find a reply. “I’m so sorry, Jack.” It was just yesterday to him, or this morning, or half an hour ago, that his son died; and there is nothing at all the Doctor can do to help. Too late, always far too late. He reaches a hand out, pulls it back before making contact. “I’m sorry.” Slipping past him into the TARDIS, retreating to his cupboard for now, he leaves Jack alone with his grief.

They are ghosts to each other for the next few days. The Doctor, of course, is always aware of Jack’s presence, but avoids him; keeps to his own small room in large part, with brief excursions to the kitchen or library, or hours spent deep in the TARDIS where Jack cannot find him. Jack, for his part, doesn’t seek him out, doesn’t call for him. He spends hours sitting in the open door the first couple days, staring out at the graves, occasionally singing softly. The TARDIS refuses to satisfy the Doctor’s curiosity regarding the content of his songs. Instead she urges him out of hiding, but he can't imagine Jack would prefer his company; and because he strongly prefers his Captain in residence, where he is nearby, where the Doctor can satisfy himself that he is safe for now, his course of action seems obvious.

It is proving impossible to pull himself out of the despondent mood he had thrown himself headlong into. Jack had meant nothing of the kind, had not been thinking of him at all, but the regret and guilt won't stop gnawing at him. _Someone_ ought to hate him, and even if Jack won't hate him forgiveness seems unbelievable as well. But neither can he imagine making any further demands on a man newly grieving the loss of his son; so instead he hates himself, and hides, and falls deeper.

-+-+-+-

The Doctor is sitting in the kitchen, head hanging, hands in his hair, failing to drink his tea again, when a voice asks, “Why have you abandoned me?” It sounds like the voice of his conscience, if unusually clear.

“I _never_ ,” he snarls. Of all the things he's done, surely he has kept his word on _that_ , at least. “He's safe here. I'd just drive him away again, poking my nose in where it's not wanted.” Shaking his head, he laughs derisively. “And the fact that I'm having this conversation strongly suggests that I'm not well, which he doesn't need to be dealing with right now either.” Not that he doesn't talk to himself frequently. But he tries to keep this sort internal.

There is a pause. “He may need you.”

“Then he'd say. Not shy, my Captain. He'd say, and there's nothing I'd deny him, so why pretend?” He smiles bitterly at his cold tea. “No, this is about me needing him again, isn't it? He's busy; he's just lost his son.”

“And his lover?”

It's getting harder to think; there is a heaviness to the world, a terrible stifling stillness, as if someone had clasped hands to his ears and dragged him underwater. He tugs hard at his hair, hoping the pain will clear his head. “I'm not his lover, I'm his murderer. Genocide, failed god, where does it stop? No,” his lips twist into a parody of a smile, “I know the answer to _that_ , at least.”

There is a noise behind him like a muffled sob. Horror clawing through his chest, the Doctor twists in his chair and meets his Captain's eyes, terrified of what he'll see.

Jack looks shattered, all his pain visible on his face, and the Doctor has just added to it _again_ -! “Please don't ask this of me right now,” he whispers.

“I wouldn't,” the Doctor denies wretchedly. “I was trying not to!” Trying, and trying, but no matter how he tries it's never enough.

Taking a deep breath, Jack visibly composes himself, folding the pain away behind the layers that mask him from the rest of the universe. “If you want to drop me off,” he offers, “come back in a couple -”

“No!” To fail him now, again, would break his hearts. “I’m fine. Please stay. Whatever you need, Jack, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise…”

The sound Jack makes is barely recognizable as a laugh. “You’re not _fine_. I’m not fine. We’re just destroying ourselves, and if I stay maybe we’ll destroy each other.”

“Maybe,” the Doctor agrees, wondering now what else Jack has been spending his time on. Standing, he takes a step toward the man he had half hoped, half feared would take up the task of judging him. But even the Time Lords had never managed that to any effect. He still feels submerged, caught in the undertow, pulled inexorably toward the still point at the center. “Shall we try anyway?” Mutual assistance, or mutually assured destruction; it is very much their style. Jack doesn’t reply, just stands there, waiting, breaths carefully controlled. Half expecting him to turn and run, the Doctor takes a few more steps; Jack said he needed him, unbelievable as it may be, and there is truly nothing the Doctor will deny him. Winding arms around his lover, the Doctor pulls him close.

After a last searching look, Jack closes his eyes and lays his head down on the Doctor’s shoulder. His breath hitches, and after a long moment he whispers, “His name was Basant.”

-+-+-+-

It proves much more difficult than he had hoped not to go up in flames. Each needing what the other can't provide, they continue to spend a great deal of time apart. Jack needs to talk, to be surrounded by the comfort of familiarity; he needs the Doctor, and the Doctor has lost himself.

He considers, at least once an hour, giving it all up as a bad job. But, bad job though it may be, he won’t abandon Jack.

“Who did you think you were talking to?” Jack demands eventually, frustrated and not quite able to forget the scene in the kitchen, no matter how the Doctor tries to neglect his own needs to meet his lover’s.

Watching him sidelong, well aware of what he is admitting, the Doctor answers, “My conscience.”

His Captain stares at him, expressionless, then sighs. “Go on, then.”

Baffled, the Doctor shakes his head. “What? Where?”

“To work things out with your conscience. Go back to Bellacosa.”

It is the Doctor’s turn to stare. “Jack! I’m not leaving you. What do you take me for?”

Stepping up behind him, Jack gathers him into his arms, rests his chin on the Doctor’s shoulder. “A stubborn, hurting man. I’ve already done it, Doctor, I just don't always know when you've come from. I was… trying to borrow from the past, I think, but you should go, before we self-destruct. I can’t help you right now, and although I appreciate that you’ve been trying, you can’t help me either.”

Leaning back against him, the Doctor says, “You shouldn’t be alone.” It’s a token protest; Jack has truth and timelines on his side.

“I won’t be. Go get yourself straightened out, so we don’t have to do this again.”

-+-+-+-

 


	13. Let the universe hang

Jack isn’t waiting for him, this time. Rapping on the door of the little house, the Doctor calls, “Jack? I’m back.”

An answering call of “Door’s open!” drifts out to him, so he lifts the latch and steps inside. Nothing is different, which for no good reason seems odd and gives him a small taste of the disconcerting phenomenon he is subjecting Jack to.

“I'm sorry,” he blurts, intending it more for the Jack he's just left.

“For what?” Jack asks, poking his head out from the bedroom. “I'm glad you came back.”

He had promised, hadn't he? But then again, Jack knows the value of his promises. He had meant it, though. “For -” _everything_ wouldn't be far off. _Failing you again_ couldn't possibly be a spoiler. _Breaking you_ , but he isn't broken in the slightest right now. The Doctor swallows thickly, and finally settles on, “Asking so much of you.”

The rest of Jack follows out of the bedroom, concern clear on his face. “What's wrong?”

That is very definitely something he has no good answer to. “You needed me,” he tries to explain, “and I… I couldn’t.” He can’t take it anymore, it's been days and he can't shake the question. “Jack, I was a _monster_ . I've done unforgivable things, to you, to people I never even saw, to an entire _galaxy_. To Time itself. You can't just… how can you let me just… go on?”

Jack has been standing silently, watching him, but at this his brows raise. “ _Let you_ ,” he echoes, rolling the phrase around in his mouth, and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Ah.” Drawing himself up to his full height, straight-backed and square, he stalks toward the Doctor, not stopping until the Time Lord has been forced to give way and finds himself backed against the door. “Yes,” he says, the words like hammer blows, “you were a monster.”

Leaning heavily against the door, the Doctor gasps at the pain of hearing Jack say it; but the relief is even greater, that finally someone will acknowledge the truth, will hold him responsible.

“You took me captive,” Jack continues, running his thumbnail up the centre of the Doctor's chest as if to split him open. “You broke me down, and put cuffs on me, and killed me without the faintest hint of remorse.” His hand is at the Doctor's throat now, thumb digging into the hinge of his jaw, palm pressing just hard enough to urge the Doctor's chin up. Staring spellbound into his Captain's dispassionate gaze, the Doctor doesn't consider resisting. “You hurt me, you took out all your anger and frustration on me.” Something in him is finally beginning to settle to stillness, some constant undercurrent of condemnation and recrimination, accusation and guilt. “You used me. You raped me.” The words slide home like knives to his hearts and the Doctor's breath is coming harshly now as he slumps limply, letting Jack's hand on his throat hold him up.

Suddenly Jack lets go, and the Doctor collapses to his knees. “Get up,” his Captain orders, still expressionless, hauling on the back of his jacket; the Doctor struggles to obey. When he is back on his feet, Jack pulls the jacket off him, drops it to the floor carelessly. He slides the Doctor's braces off, and what has been a sensual tease in the past is rendered only a utilitarian stripping away. “I've been waiting for this,” he says, conversationally but from just behind the Doctor's ear; he shivers. “I've got just the thing.”

He is undoing the buttons on the Doctor’s shirt now and the Doctor has no idea where this is going, none at all; and that is part of it, he understands. Part of his punishment, this loss of control. His choices ended when he asked Jack to be his conscience.

Jack is working his collar free with unexpected care, and then the shirt is gone and he has a finger hooked through the back of the bowtie he left in place. He twists to tighten it and the Doctor whimpers. “You’ve killed me more times than I can count,” he continues, pushing the Doctor ahead of him into the bedroom. “But I'll bet you know exactly how many.”

The Doctor hasn’t thought about it, has refused to think about it, but to his horror he finds Jack is right: nine hundred and seventy four, plus the last two when he had all but forced Jack to kill himself. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, bowing his head; he goes willingly when Jack forces him to his knees, rests his forehead against the bed in front of him.

“That’s not going to be good enough.” Jack’s voice comes from somewhere in the room behind him, and he’s right; being sorry has never done a single bit of good in all the Doctor’s long life. Returning, his Captain takes his left wrist in strangely gentle hands. “This will help,” he says, which seems to the Doctor an odd non sequitur, and wraps a thick cuff around his wrist. Cuffing his right wrist as well, he attaches them behind the Doctor’s back, then steps away.

Almost any other day of his life, he would protest. Today he only waits silently for Jack’s next words, captive as he had held Jack for so long.

“You had my consent for every one of those deaths.” There is finally some emotion in his voice, but the Doctor isn’t sure what it is. “Give me your consent now.”

“Yes,” he says quickly, “anything.”

“Oh, Doctor,” Jack sighs, nearly inaudibly. Then the flame in him leaps high and bright, and the Doctor presses his head against the bed, trembling in terror; but Jack stays back, for now. “Never an ordinary monster, though, were you?” His voice is unsteady. “Not to just one man, but to entire planets. You made yourself a living, breathing god to a galaxy of sentient races, and in the end, you failed them.” The Doctor moans, curling in on himself. “You saw Time itself as your plaything, a string puzzle, tied it in knots, broke it and remade it.” Jack steps toward him then, lays a hand on his back between his shoulder blades, and the Doctor screams. With that fire drawn to the surface it burns like a brand, part real pain, part the overwhelming reality of the Fixed Point, part the threat of the power that might swallow him down without care.

But he is trapped here, and Jack doesn’t move away, and if this is his punishment he _wants_ it, wants the relief of suffering in return for the suffering he has caused. Now that the neverending condemnation in his own mind has been taken over by an outside voice there is finally silence inside. He presses back resolutely against his Captain’s hand and sobs.

“This is what you stole, Doctor.” Jack’s voice cuts through it all, the voice of his conscience, always there. “A power never meant to be held by a Time Lord. You made yourself into what you’ve spent your life fighting against. You wondered why you couldn’t go near your own timeline? If a younger you had seen what you became, he would never have let it go. You would have destroyed yourself, and how could Time have borne it?”

Once upon a time the Doctor had swallowed down that blazing fire and changed everything he touched; now he swallows down the pain and guilt and regret and he is changed, hollowed out in its wake. Eventually his resolution falters, and he sags forward against the bed again. Then Jack’s hand is gone, and his fire is banked down to its normal brightness, and he gathers the Doctor gently into his arms, lifting him onto the bed. “Gods have mercy on me,” he says quietly, but the Doctor can’t make sense of his Captain needing mercy. Jack takes his boots off and climbs into bed with him, holding him close, warmth lulling him softly. Wrists still cuffed behind him, he falls quickly into a dreamless sleep.

When he wakes, Jack is gone; the bed is cold but the pillow where his head had been is wet with tears.

-+-+-+-

He has no desire to leave, and hopes Jack won’t ask him to. Mind still feeling mercifully muffled, he makes tea, then sits outside to await his Captain’s return.

The cuffs may be the same ones Jack wore for so long; they are indistinguishable save for the fact that the Doctor can’t get them off. Jack had, at least, detached them from each other before he left, which is… better than the Doctor had always managed. Tea mug in hand, he considers his new additions, slowly turning his left wrist over. He has never worn cuffs before, at least not voluntarily; he has certainly been handcuffed and manacled and tied up and chained to plenty of things over the course of his life.

“Why,” he muses, “am I wearing cuffs?” The answer is not immediately obvious to him, beyond the simple fact that Jack didn’t remove them. “Why does Jack wear cuffs?” They are a reminder of something, he thinks; a pledge made, a promise given. Between himself and Jack in the past it has been, ideally, a handing over of control for the promise of care and belonging, but that doesn't seem to adequately describe their current dynamics.

Soon enough his Captain returns, appearing over a rise nearby, carrying a few large bags. “Jack!” the Doctor exclaims, more relieved than he expected. Setting his mug on the ground, he goes to meet him, to help carry the bags. “Jack,” he says as they walk together, “why am I wearing cuffs?”

Jack gives him a sidelong puzzled look. “That’s what’s top of your mind this morning? Maybe I’m doing better than I thought.” He had perhaps had more on his mind when he'd arrived, at that. “To keep you… to help you stay focused. You need to be externalising, I don't want you turning everything inward like you always do, especially if I'm, if I have to…” He glances at the Doctor again, then looks away. “If I'm hurting you in the name of your conscience, it will only make things worse if I can't keep you out of your head. The cuffs are an external focus. You're never going to forget they're there.”

“Oh.” He considers for a moment. “No, I'm not.” Jack makes a noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and the Doctor turns to him with concern. “Are you alright?”

“Approximately,” Jack replies. “Nothing to worry about right now. Everything still quiet in there?” The Doctor nods. Pushing open the door, Jack says, “Good. Help me put away all this food?”

His mind is quiet for the rest of the day, but when he sleeps again he dreams, and when he wakes he doesn't know where he is for a moment. “Jack?” he whispers, but Jack isn't there or he would know absolutely where he is. He is nearby, though. “Jack?”

The door swings open silently and Jack appears in silhouette. “Doctor? What's wrong?” But it's not here, it's not now, and he's cuffed and caught, staring up at the condemnation he usually has to provide for himself.

“I didn't mean to,” the Doctor chokes out, throat gone tight.

Completely still, Jack pauses for a moment, then asks, “Didn't mean to, what?”

“Break you,” he whispers.

“You didn't care one way or another,” his conscience points out coldly. “You _didn't mean to_ only in that you weren't consciously intending to produce that result. You certainly pursued the outcome with devotion.” The Doctor flinches but can’t look away as Jack crosses the room to loom over him. Reaching down, Jack grips the cuff on his nearer wrist and squeezes. “You broke me down until all I had was you, and then you showed me I didn’t matter to you at all. You threw me to a Reaper, and then you were _surprised_.” And he had been; had expected simply to continue his experiments without impediment.

Suddenly he is rolled onto his front, Jack sitting astride his hips, sealing his wrists together behind his back again. It feels terribly exposed; he had been sleeping in just pants. “And at my most vulnerable,” Jack says, voice smooth and dark, running burning fingertips up his back, “you still couldn't resist taking advantage.” He leans down to the Doctor's ear. “In between murders.”

Lying still beneath his Captain, the Doctor shudders, feeling each word rock him.

“I've been through a lot in my life,” Jack says, breath hitching, “but you are what broke me.” A heartsbroken cry escapes the Time Lord and there is barely enough of him left to be afraid as Jack slides backward, tugging on his cuffs to bring him to his knees. Tears soaking into the bed, the Doctor waits.

And waits.

Eventually Jack returns; he unsticks the cuffs and rolls the Doctor onto his side, tucking his head beneath his chin and holding tight. His touch is fire and pain and relief, and the Doctor wraps an arm around the searing heat of him and mumbles, “Don’t you see it's what I deserve.” Swallowing thickly, Jack says nothing, but holds him so tightly it hurts; and that is a relief as well, enough for now.

-+-+-+-

Jack looks wrecked in the morning, elbows braced on the table, head in his hands, staring at nothing. “There are lines I can't cross,” he says, “no matter how… relevant to the issue at hand. I'll do the best I can for you, Doctor, but not that.”

Thoughts still somehow all on the outside of his head, he attempts to reassure his distressed Captain. “I'm feeling fine, you must be doing it right.” But Jack just smiles sadly at him. “Maybe you need distracting,” the Doctor muses; Jack's eyes go wide and he stands abruptly.

“No! I mean, yes,” he says, shaking his head, which is very confusing. “Let's… go for a walk, you haven't seen much of the area.” The Doctor doesn't think that was what he had in mind but it is hard to keep track right now; and anyway it sounds nice, so they go for a walk.

There is a timeless quality to the days here, which is remarkably odd when one is a Time Lord. “I feel slowed down,” he observes to Jack at some point, poking at one of his cuffs; Jack had been right, he never for a second forgets they are there. “As if these were some sort of throttle. Or do thoughts just take longer when they’re all on the outside?”

“A little of both, I expect.” Sat in the armchair, Jack looks up at the Doctor from his book. He sometimes goes away for hours, but he has always been back by the time another one of the more awful thoughts bubbles up.

“Do they do this to you?” Suddenly concerned, he peers curiously at Jack. “Is this why you let me -”

“No, they don't. No, it's not. This isn’t about me, Doctor.”

“You didn't let me at all,” the Doctor concludes glumly. “Under the circumstances…”

Jack's voice has gone cold again. “No, I didn't _let you_ do anything. Trapped in a pretty prison by a mad god who can find me anywhere, and you think I was in a position to be allowing anything?”

Stumbling backward as Jack stands, the Doctor realises he is trapped in the small sitting room, the only exits past Jack, and folds himself into the far corner. Escape is not his desire, precisely; but that voice of condemnation brought to life is newly terrifying each time. He has run for years from the silent echoes of it in his own mind, trying to drown it out by attempting to fix one thing after another and failing again and again. “No more running,” he whispers, eyes fixed on his Captain’s face.

“No running,” Jack agrees, advancing slowly. “Not for you, not for me. You brought us to this, your need to control your fate, control time. No one gets a second try, unless you're the Doctor; then you make the rules, don't you?” Nodding, then shaking his head, the Doctor is not sure how to respond. He had thought so; he learned better. Jack reaches out, lays searing fingertips against his face despite the flinch he can’t suppress. “Nothing worse than a Fixed Point, staring you in the face, taunting you. All that hard evidence that you _can't control anything_. All that power, calling out to you; no matter you have to murder for it, he'll get over it.” The Doctor moans sickly, pulls his arms tighter around himself, but Jack continues. He might be discussing the weather for all the emotion he shows. “The Sep knew you, though. Their future cut from Time, but that vision of you echoed back.” Stroking the Doctor’s face lightly, he smiles, a bare twist of lips. “My Fury.”

The Doctor gasps as Jack pushes an image to the front of his mind. It is rare for him to make use of any psychic ability, and since the Doctor arrived he has kept his shields as tight as if his life depended on it, so the vision of himself, wild-eyed and screaming and burning in golden fire, takes the Doctor completely by surprise. His involuntary attempt to hide is prevented by Jack’s hand under his crossed forearms, holding him up; his head is caught against Jack’s shoulder. Nowhere to run.

“Can you imagine what they would have thought?” Jack whispers. “The shock, the horror. _He's always been unstable, but we never imagined this._ ” Beginning to understand who _they_ are, the Doctor closes his eyes against the coming blow. “Be glad you had already destroyed the Time Lords, Doctor. They would have destroyed you.”

It hurts more than anything else so far, the idea of ever _rejoicing_ -! Breath lost in a pained grunt, the Doctor is silent in the aftermath, feeling something unspooling inside, slithering out like someone had caught hold of his spinal cord and yanked; the empty space left is no better, all wrong. When the fire comes, he welcomes it with abandon.

-+-+-+-

Sometimes he wakes at night, held close in Jack’s arms, and can hear him speaking softly, a stream of reassurance rising and falling, washing over him like cool water, damping down any pain left from the day. He can’t always make out the words. When he can, they don’t always make sense to him, sometimes perfect contradictions to things Jack has said only hours ago.

 _I love you_ he knows as sure as time even if he forgets what it means sometimes, and _I’m sorry_ he doesn’t understand, and he still doesn’t know what Jack needs mercy for; surely it is he who should be praying. “People expect you to produce miracles,” Jack murmurs another night, “and gods know you try. You believe you can, and we all believe it too, and then you think anything but a perfect success is a failure. No one else judges you against gods, Doctor.” Once he whispers fiercely, “I would burn Time itself for you, and let the universe hang. _You are not a monster_.”

Sometimes he simply weeps, silently, as he holds the Doctor; safe from responsibility, safe from choices, safe from mistakes, safe from harm.

-+-+-+-

He is not sure how long he has been here. It isn't that he has lost count; he can count perfectly well. He just doesn't know where to start from, the first unknown number of days having drifted together in his memory to an indistinct continuity.

“Thirteen,” the Doctor muses, wandering into the sitting room from the kitchen. “Plus, I'm nearly certain, more than three, but how much more than three?” Jack is currently settled on the sofa, watching the Doctor with weary reserve. “What do you suppose that adds to?” the Doctor asks him.

“You're trying to count the days again? I wish you wouldn't.” In contrast, Jack has gained no clarity as the days go by, instead acquiring a air of exhausted carrying on.

“I'm a Time Lord, Jack, I am concerned with time.”

“Aren't you just,” Jack mutters.

“Why aren't you?”

“We're not here about me.” He won’t answer questions, beyond _would you like tea_ and the like. “I'm here, I love you, that's the only important thing about me right now.”

“Jack,” the Doctor says reproachfully. “You should stop that. It will only get you hurt.”

Face gone carefully blank, Jack takes a deep breath. “I think you had better let me decide that for myself, Doctor. Your record of making choices for other people is not good, recently.”

“Oh,” he says, chastened. “Yes, you're right. Not just recently, either.”

“No,” his Captain agrees, “Time is full of _the Doctor knows better_. A lot of people have suffered for your hubris, Doctor. People have died, because you’re so sure you’re the smartest and most clever.” Nodding miserably, the Doctor drops down next to Jack, clasps his hands between his knees. “Tell me,” Jack says, and the Doctor curls up further.

“Please, can't you…” he begs. Sometimes Jack makes him enumerate his own sins, and it is so much harder.

But his Captain simply lets the immortal flame in him flare brighter, and repeats, “Tell me,” and with the promise of judgement, and punishment, and relief at the end, the Doctor closes his eyes and begins.

They have already done everything recent, but the litany is neverending, it seems. It doesn’t come linearly. He skips about through his terrible history, circling warily around the worst offenses. With each new confession it becomes more difficult to continue; he yearns more and more for the pain that sweeps through him and leaves only quiet and calm behind.

He is huddled on his knees before the sofa, arms wrapped around himself, cuffs pressing into his wrists and ribs, well into the spiral down to the center of a topic he has avoided assiduously until now, when he reaches, “And I was wrong about him, Jack, maybe I was always wrong about him, I was so alone and I thought he must be too, I thought I could save him, I thought…  But instead I led you and Martha into a year of hell and the Earth died.”

“It was all just a game to you,” Jack says, with more bitterness and less straightforward accusation than usual. “To both of you, scoring points against each other. Primitive inhabitants of an insignificant little rock, what does it matter against miraculously finding your best enemy at the end of the universe.” But he is kneeling in front of the Doctor and finally, finally his hands are there, full of all the fire the Doctor has condemned others to for his mistakes. Stopping there feels incomplete but is nonetheless a great relief. His Captain takes his hands, lacing their fingers together, and traces scorching lines of flame on the Doctor's palms with his thumbs. The Doctor lets his head hang limply and breathes through the pain, breathes it in, feels it settle in his hearts, lets it burn away a little more of the deep well of self-loathing at the bottom of his mind.

“He was the only other one,” he whispers, “who ever helped me atone.”

There is a sudden burst of firestorm that leaves him stunned, collapsed on the floor, and Jack is gone; two staggering steps away and falling back to his knees, doubled over and retching. The Doctor reaches weakly for him, but there is nothing he can do; so he waits.

“I can't do this anymore,” Jack says eventually, not turning. “I'm sorry, Doctor, I can't.”

-+-+-+-

They lie together in bed that night, listening to the wind, not sleeping, not talking. Jack has taken the cuffs away although the Doctor begged him not to, and now he doesn't know how to think.

“This wasn't atonement,” Jack says softly, into the Doctor's hair. He is holding him wrapped in his arms, skin to skin, warm and safe as he has every night the Doctor has been here. “Confession, certainly; catharsis, perhaps. It was something you felt you needed, and I hope it helped. But don't mistake it for atonement. Hurting yourself will never help anyone else. There is no one who can absolve us, no one but ourselves penance can satisfy; no way but onward.” The words slip into the Doctor's mind like pebbles in a still pool of water, sending out ripples, building up an unseen foundation. He remains silent but nods, and his hand on Jack's back doesn't still until he falls asleep.

It is another three days before Jack is willing to discuss anything of import with him again.

“I’m not _impaired!_ ” he tries, frustrated, after the second day. He will grant that perhaps he had been; the last day has been a strange process of reintegration, an infolding of all his scattered thoughts. He had come here broken wide open, and Jack had gone to significant effort to make sure he stayed that way, to make sure he wasn’t simply storing up more pain and guilt, gathering more evidence with which to condemn himself. A condemnation that would, devastatingly, have been in Jack’s voice.

“Yes,” Jack replies firmly, “you really are.”

“I am not! I am perfectly capable of rational conversation on any number of topics.”

“I’m not,” says Jack, and walks away. The Doctor stares after him, suddenly reignited worry and guilt a smouldering ember between his hearts.

But the next morning, after breakfast, Jack catches his hand before he can leave the table. “Your conscience,” he says, staring up at the Doctor, “does not speak truth.”

Blinking, unable to make sense of this statement from the mouth of the man who has been embodying that voice to him, the Doctor sinks back into his chair. “What?”

“You are not a monster.” The Doctor opens his mouth but Jack holds up his other hand to stop him. “Or if you are it’s no more so than me. It’s what _happens_ , when you go on making the hard choices for too long, they keep getting bigger and bigger. I know you couldn't go to anyone else for this, but… gods of mercy…” Covering his mouth with his hand, he watches the Doctor silently for a moment, blue eyes startling wells of light in his shadowed face. “The things I said to you, Doctor. To want me to condemn you for good intentions, for bad luck, for crimes _I_ was complicit in… I never… I could never… Call it conscience if you like, but whatever that voice is, it _lies_.”

“But -” the Doctor says, and stops. “I don't -” he tries again, but it's still wrong. It feels like a test, a vitally important one, and he doesn't even know if he manages to make it come out aright; the future Jack he has met is so different, with him. Jack was right, to wait these days to have this conversation.

Maybe he is right about other things as well.

Left hand still caught in his Captain's grip, right hand rubbing at his wrist which feels disconcertingly exposed, the Doctor asks, and hopes he hasn't finally asked too much. “What am I missing?”

After a searching look, Jack answers surprisingly quickly. “Compassion.” The Doctor flinches. “For yourself,” Jack adds, gently.

He could probably stand to show some to Jack, as well. “I -”

“Deserve it.” Squeezing his hand, Jack presses a kiss to his knuckles, then stands up and lets go. “More than you deserve what I've done to you.”

“Jack!” But he doesn't pause, and then he's gone, could be hours until he returns, and the Doctor thinks maybe he has failed the test after all, and lost his Captain for good. Back where he started when he arrived, asking too much of a man who already carries a greater burden than even he can properly understand.

He tidies whilst he waits, his nervous energy reasserting itself. By now he has spent enough time here to know where everything belongs, to feel like he himself belongs, but it is a worrying itch at the back of his mind that he isn't confident he knows exactly _how_ long. Maybe not quite the back, at that. The TARDIS will know. Abandoning the tidying - the books don’t really need any more straightening anyway - he strides purposefully out of the house, realises he has no boots on, returns to remedy the situation, and tries again. When he reaches her he stops and stares, utterly nonplussed, at the sparse curtain of climbing tendrils she is nursing on her sunniest side. A few of them even bear small, white flowers.

It is, luckily, not the door side. “You’ve taken up gardening?” he asks, making his way to the console, suddenly not sure he wants to know how long it’s been. The TARDIS is calm and content, patiently waiting. As he accesses the travel logs she reminds him that gardening is no new hobby; she keeps a number of them. Life in linear time is a favourite if barely comprehensible thing to observe. The Doctor pats the console fondly, absently.

Twenty two days.

Jack has been carrying this weight for him for twenty two days, playing the part of the vengeful conscience of a broken man, allowing him to purge some of the guilt and grief. The central atrocity of his life is still there, will always be there, but he does feel less raw, less as though he is bleeding from a thousand wounds at once. But in doing so, Jack has taken great deal of pain upon himself. It occurs to the Doctor to wonder, as he leaves the TARDIS, if this is how normal people have relationships, or if it is a function of their long lives and tangled timelines. Always pulling at each other, always hurting, always healing, always going on. Eccentric wanderer, he remembers, and goes in search of his sun.

He finds Jack folded miserably at the foot of the large stone they had ended up at his last visit here, head bowed to his drawn up knees; the bloodstains are more recent than the Doctor expected, somehow. Eyes narrowing suspiciously, he realises some of them are _extremely_ recent. And Jack has his hands tucked away under his arms.

“Jack,” the Doctor says softly, crouching down in front of him, “it’s alright, Jack, it’s going to be alright. Please let me see your hands.” Jack shakes his head, but doesn’t otherwise respond. Sitting down next to him, not quite touching, the Doctor coaxes, “Please let me see, Jack.” When he still doesn't respond, the Doctor makes a guess. “You aren’t a monster, either.”

Arms unfolding abruptly, face still hidden, Jack flings his hands out before him as if to disown them. “I’ve been hurting you for weeks, Doctor. And you liked it best when it was my bare touch. It worked best for you when _my existence_ made you scream in pain. What else could I be?” Bloody hands clenching into painful fists, he sounds distraught, stretched to the breaking point. “What am I _for?_ ”

“Just for existing, like any of us,” the Doctor replies, sadly. “Only the universe is a little more attached to you.” Reaching out, he carefully gathers Jack’s nearer hand, bruised and bleeding, between his own, holding loosely to avoid more pain. “Don't do this to yourself, Jack. You were very careful to make sure I knew you were playing a part; don't forget it yourself.” He moves over slightly, closing the distance between them, so their bodies are pressed together from knees to hips to shoulders. Jack's warmth is pleasant in the cool air. “I'm not afraid of you.”

“You’ve been flinching when I move for the last week.”

Cursing himself for a bloody fool, the Doctor shifts back to his knees before his Captain, takes both his hands and sets them to his face. “My life in your hands, Jack,” he says quietly. “Nothing less. I am not afraid of you.”

Jack’s eyes are dull and red-rimmed as he peers over his knees. “Maybe you should be,” he mumbles. It's not very convincing.

“Jack,” the Doctor sighs. “My Jack. Thank you. I ask too much of you, again and again. I'll do it again, most likely. But thank you, for loving me.”

Searching his face intently, Jack brushes his thumbs across the Doctor’s cheeks, lets his hands fall. “Don't want me to stop, then?”

“I wouldn't hold it against you if you did. But no, not really, not when we still have time left.”

“Do we?” He sounds cautiously hopeful.

Smile creeping across his face, the Doctor sits back beside his Captain. “I have a bit of a break in my schedule.”

He takes Jack’s hands again, that night, and sets them above his hearts, holding them there when he tries to pull away at first. Gradually Jack settles, watching the Doctor quietly as he slides one hand slowly up to his throat, to his lips, kisses the palm. “It helped,” the Doctor murmurs. “As horrible as it was for you, it helped. Let me take care of you, for a while.”

Jack smiles, then; it's been a long time. “I don't _let you_ do anything, Doctor; that part was true. I get up, and I follow you.” Laying his hand along the Doctor's jaw, he whispers, “Lead me.”

-+-+-+-

 


	14. Got it handled

He had stayed far longer than he was in the habit of staying anywhere, finally fulfilling the hope Jack had betrayed on his first visit. _Promise me_ , Jack had asked again. _Until you can't, come back to me_. He had, and Jack kissed him but didn't say goodbye; the Doctor can’t decide if he expects him back immediately, or doesn’t expect him at all.

Open wounds in his soul scabbed over but still tender to the touch, he feels he owes it to Jack, and to his own… he is not sure about his conscience, right now, but his own sense of rightness in the universe, to continue. The longer he goes on, the more he adopts the universal point of view: Jack should be alive. It has been a long time away, though, and it is terribly jarring when he fishes Jack’s dead body from the tangled debris at the bottom of a flooded river.

“Fuck, I hate drowning,” Jack says, after he has finished coughing up a significant portion of the river. Then he pins the Doctor with a stern gaze. “Thank you, but really, I don't need your help right now. I've got it handled.” Staggering a bit, he pulls himself to his feet and sets off upriver whilst the Doctor is still trying to evolve a cogent response.

“But -”

Jack doesn’t pause or even turn his head as he replies. “I know I can't stop you, but please, if you love me, go away for a while.”

It seems a low blow. “Jack!” But he doesn't respond again, and the Doctor is left staring after him, contemplating just how severely he had failed his lover after Sundara Aintu. He had meant to apologise. He had meant to _talk,_ at least, it almost always gets him somewhere, which is presumably why Jack refused to listen. Eventually he turns and makes his way rather forlornly back to the TARDIS.

His boots are squelching.

-+-+-+-

Uncertain again, the Doctor paces around the console room, boots set aside to dry. It is empty, which is completely normal, but he has spent so long orbiting Jack that it doesn't feel right; and before Jack there was Linder, whom he has barely thought of in all the fire and death and guilt. It has been long enough that the Doctor is surprised to find that the pain has faded and instead he remembers first their joy in the universe. Impulsively he inputs the coordinates for Sosilasoloon, and hopes he has managed _early_ morning this time.

It is an odd little ball of rock orbiting a gas giant, massive enough to capture an atmosphere but too volatile for anyone to stay and appreciate it. By a coincidence of orbital distances, it spends just enough of its slow circuit around its primary in the deep dark of solar occlusion that its atmosphere freezes, depositing itself like snow in metres of dry powder. Then, as dawn breaks again, the frozen atmosphere begins to sublimate and, in a particular mountainous region of Sosilasoloon, the Cascades of Morning are born. He had brought Linder here but missed by weeks, all the way into mid-morning; by then, the Cascades are in full spate, a boiling, billowing tumble of sublimating gases and melting liquids flowing dangerously unpredictably.

Opening the doors to the first light of dawn, the Doctor wonders whether to grieve the senseless loss of a friend or to be thankful he had managed to give them more than the single glimpse of the unknown they had been willing - more than that, _waiting_ \- to trade their life for. He eventually settles on an uncomfortable compromise between the two, and lets the sight of the rising morning stand as monument and memorial in his mind.

“But before Linder it was just us, wasn't it, old girl? Off on a grand tour. We could go back to it; Jack doesn't want to see us.” She sounds surprisingly doubtful at this. “He _said_. It wasn't in anger, and I don’t blame him. I fell apart when he needed me most; I wouldn’t want to see me, either. Frequently don’t,” he adds, still watching the effervescent sunrise, not out the doorway nor yet quite ready to turn back home. Humming in sympathy, the TARDIS waits patiently for him to settle on a plan. “Maybe it's time for a break. Far too entangled, lately… on the other hand I suppose it's not like he’ll be the one doing the leaving.” Which is a very selfish way to look at it; Jack won't be the one hurting _him_ , so why not stick around? But that clock is always ticking down, to the day he has to say goodbye for good. “I’m not suggesting just… abandoning him. I wouldn’t. I couldn't; you know how wrong it is when he's dead. Whatever backup plan he has, it's not going to stand up to every disaster he gets himself into.” But he would prefer not to expose himself to the crushing disappointment on his Captain's face now he has laid down _that_ gauntlet; or even worse, what if he were unsurprised? The Doctor is mildly ashamed to be putting his feelings above the sound structure of the universe again, but he truly isn't sure Jack would forgive him that display of self-centered arrogance. Finally he nods decisively and turns, plumes of mist erupting from sere powder covered mountains at his back, the familiarly of the transcendental shell he carries with him ahead. “Well, so be it. He doesn't want to see us; he won't see us.”

And so he doesn't; they are there and gone again before he revives. It's not _easier_ , because he can hardly bear to just leave his Captain's body lying alone, but maybe it is better for Jack.

With nothing to do, no interaction, no adventures to look forward to, it is no longer enough to occupy his mind; he may not be teetering at the brink of a precipice anymore but his own company still holds no particular appeal for him. He begins to wander again, resuming his peripatetic ways; visiting the occasional astrographic oddity, fomenting an accidental rebellion here and there, foiling invasions and fixing other people's stupid mistakes his specialty. And in between, dropping in to make sure Jack isn't destabilising the universe too badly.

Not that Jack is helping in that endeavour. He seems to have taken up rescue work again, or disaster relief, or something similar; the Doctor keeps finding him in improbably awful predicaments. Not that he would be seeing the easy predicaments, but it is happening surprisingly frequently.

It's as he is trying to sneak away again five or six repetitions of this on, after having found Jack buried in the wide plain left after a volcanic lahar, that that plan falls through as well. With Jack’s body completely undamaged, the Doctor has less time than usual and is hurrying back to the TARDIS when the bright sun behind him reignites.

“Doctor!” he calls, just as the Doctor reaches his sanctuary.

“No,” the Time Lord calls back, “it's not,” and pushes the door open.

“Please come back,” Jack says, which stops him in his tracks. He is sitting up as the Doctor cautiously turns around. “You've been rescuing me on the sly.”

Just himself he’s been fooling, yet again. The Doctor tries again to make good his escape; he had been headed off to find a likely looking junk planet next, to look for parts for his best girl. Might find all sorts of things. “Not at all. You're looking more lively, I'll just be off -”

Jack cocks that eyebrow at him, and he falls silent, throat painfully tight all of a sudden; he has _missed_ that. “You just did.”

“...Yes.” He takes a single step away from the TARDIS, without removing his hand from the safety she offers. “You didn't want to see me.”

Watching him solemnly, Jack replies, “I'm sorry. I'm over it. You don't need to hide.” More than solemn, the Doctor realises, now he dares look closely at his Captain. Whites of his eyes showing in a ring, his breathing is carefully controlled and his arms are tense, fingers dug into the ground. Carefully making his way back, the Doctor crouches down in front of him, reaches out to cup his cheek gently. “You know,” Jack says, staring at him the whole time, “you know what this…” He takes a breath. “What I’m remembering.”

 _Try not to get stuck in cement again_ , he had said thoughtlessly once, and been appalled at the horror he had seen in his Captain’s eyes. “Yes,” he admits. Jack nods, and closes his eyes, and leans just slightly into the Doctor’s hand, which rekindles some spark he hadn’t realised had burnt out; he feels, oddly, both lightheaded and more grounded.

“Can I -”

“Yes,” the Doctor says again, so quickly it startles a huff of laughter from Jack.

He opens his eyes, and one side of his mouth twitches up. “Feeling generous?” he asks wryly.

Dropping forward onto his knees, the Doctor gathers him into his arms, kisses his forehead. “Whatever you need.”

Jack sighs, breath warm on the Doctor’s neck, the familiar spicy scent of his skin muffled under dust and dried mud. “A shower, please, and a bed. I’m sure I’ll think of something else later, but for now…”

“You don’t need to ask for those, Jack, her door is always open to you -”

“I had to ask you not to go,” he points out, and the Doctor can’t tell whether he sounds hurt, with his face buried in his jacket as it is.

He shakes his head. “You had to tell me you changed your mind,” he corrects. “That’s all.” Jack doesn’t reply, but the Doctor can feel him relax a little more, lean a little more heavily against him. “Come on,” he coaxes. “I’ll scrub your back for you, if you like.”

Jack exhales an amused _huh_ , but starts working on standing up. “That’s my line.” Which is not a refusal, and that is good enough for now.

Company to keep the nightmares away is the only other thing Jack asks for that day, and the Doctor is happy to provide. He doesn't stay long, but neither does he ask the Doctor to stay away again. “I didn’t have it handled,” he admits, over coffee, before he leaves. “Not well enough. There’s a lot you miss, skipping through my life like this, there’s a lot I can’t say, but it’s… good you came back, I think.”

“Just like a bad penny,” the Doctor deflects, “I keep turning up.”

Jack shakes his head. “I understand atonement, Doctor, and penance, and guilt; but it’s a strange way to spend your time even so. Go out and _live_.”

“I do,” the Doctor replies, a bit defensive. He knows he's not seeing all of Jack's life; it is a little insulting that Jack thinks this is all he's doing. Even if it is mostly true. “In the betweens. And it’s not like that. The universe can’t abide you being dead, Jack, _I_ can’t…” He trails off, not sure he can explain this; not sure he understands himself. Spinning his tea cup between his hands, he watches Jack finish his coffee. “I’m not sure what stopping would mean,” he admits, quietly.

“Well,” his Captain says, standing, “until next time, then, I suppose.” He salutes, and gives the Doctor a half smile, and turns away.

-+-+-+-

The TARDIS materialises in atmosphere this time, through significant turbulence of the sort the Doctor has learned not to question. He rushes to the doors and pulls them open, holding tight, just in time to see a massive boiling on the surface of the ocean below. They have come in behind the shockwave, very near the centre, and he yelps and slams the doors shut just as a plume of water shoots toward the TARDIS.

“Look, I know navigation can be a bit dodgy on these things, but at least try not to get us blown up. We're supposed to be rescuing Jack, not the other way round.” The TARDIS does not dignify this with a response; she is doing the best she can with the timelines involved here.

Five kilometres from the centre, the Doctor sets the TARDIS down in the ocean, and settles in to wait. He opens the doors again, rolls his trousers legs up and pulls off his boots, and sits in the doorway, feet in the water, sunlight on his face. “'Look down and down into the tireless tide,'” he murmurs, watching the waves. He is looking for Jack, and has found an explosion; he feels quite confident in his Captain's location, even if he can't feel him nearby. “'What of a life below, a life inside, A tomb, a cradle in the curly foam?'” Unfortunately it seems to be half a kilometre underwater, atomized. This one is probably going to take a while.

But he is glad the TARDIS made it here even so, because it would be truly wretched for Jack. “Come back, Captain,” he coaxes. “The sea is not your home.” Of all that he admires about humans, their penchant for intensely evocative poetry is one of the most enjoyable.

After a day without any sign of him, alive or reviving, the Doctor sets the TARDIS to searching for his vortex manipulator. It's not far, horizontally, resting at the bottom of the ocean less than a kilometre closer to the epicentre, but completely out of reach for him at the moment. He doesn’t dare dematerialise again, with as much trouble as they had getting here; they would miss Jack entirely. Nothing so bad as long ago when he was young and stupid, fleeing with his granddaughter and a decommissioned TARDIS and only able to fling them at random into the vortex, but still he is limited to atmospheric flight until he is ready to leave this time and place.

He tries very hard not to wish for Jack to hurry up, having seen what happens when he revives before his body is fully recovered; but since his wishes no longer have any effect on reality he can't spare Jack any pain even if he succeeds. After another couple hours, which the Doctor spends tinkering underneath the console, listening to the TARDIS, there is a flare in his time sense that mercifully burns out almost immediately. With any luck Jack's body will be fully healed before he makes it up to the surface to breathe and sustain consciousness. Not that Luck is a goddess who has ever favored Jack.

“Gods of mercy,” the Doctor entreats, “attend your wayward son.”

They follow the gradually more frequent flares for the next few days. He is not simply drifting to the surface; some capricious force is tugging him about and the Doctor wonders about strange currents or perhaps some denizen of the deep has caught hold of him. But when Jack’s body finally breaks the surface it is rather more gruesome than the Doctor had let himself imagine. A small school of carnivorous metre-long fish seems to be shepherding him along as a sort of renewable food source, stripping the flesh from his bones; repeatedly, given the time this has taken. Jack has not been conscious long enough yet to notice, but now that he has reached air he soon will be; there is no time for a weak stomach.

Drifting in among the seething mass of fish, the Doctor wields the stout umbrella the TARDIS provides him with somewhat out of practice skill, knocking noses and bashing sides. “Shan't have him,” he grunts, kicking at sharp teeth that make it through the doors. “Haven’t come all this way just to finally find out what happens if he gets _eaten_.” He hooks an arm under Jack's currently better-attached shoulder and hauls him in, with a couple last kicks to send a determined diner on to the next meal, or possibly to _be_ the next meal, he really doesn't care at the moment. “Although - no, I really _don't_ want to know…”

Slamming the doors behind him, the Doctor takes a moment to catch his breath, taking in the sight of his Captain's mangled body unwillingly. He doesn't run, and he won't hide anymore, but this moment is only less horrible for having lost some of the shock of the earliest rescues, and for him having healed somewhat in mind; in fact he holds tight to the horror, and hopes to never again be the man who could only bear to look at Jack with his blazing fire dimmed in death. Parts of him are missing; a lower leg, most of his hand on the more devoured arm, and large portions of his flesh. It is filling in as the Doctor watches, though, and he is momentarily torn between carrying Jack to the infirmary or leaving him here and fetching the dermal regenerator, possibly a sedative. Carry, he decides, so as to not be without something he needs; hefting the considerably lighter than usual body of his Captain into his arms, he makes his way up the stairs.

There is not a lot he can do to speed the healing process any further, for all his medical magic. He could knit bones, if Jack had broken bones. He can assist the skin sealing over at the end. He can certainly diagnose ailments, and cure a wide variety of diseases and poisons, neither of which services he often finds Jack in need of. But in this kind of situation, he can mostly wait, and if Jack wakes screaming sedate him, and then wait again. It's rough on him, but it is far worse for Jack, and the Doctor tries very hard not to think about all the times Jack wakes alone, screaming or otherwise; or worse than alone.

He is dozing lightly, forehead resting against his Captain's hand to borrow just a bit of his warmth and stability, when Jack wakes again, finally fully healed. He is mumbling, eyes still closed. “Doctor…? How did you -”

“Jack?” At the sound of his voice Jack's eyes fly open and he starts upward.

“Doctor!”

“Last time I checked, yes,” the Doctor replies, concerned by Jack's confusion. Sitting up, he sets a hand on Jack's chest to push him back down to the bed.

“You shouldn't be here. You _really_ shouldn't be here, Doctor, you _can't_ be here -”

“I very nearly wasn't,” the Time Lord cuts him off. “But hush, hush,” he soothes, running his hand over Jack's forehead, into his hair, leaning down to lay his cheek against his Captain's when that isn't enough. “I haven't left the TARDIS, I haven't interacted with anything but some fish. Whatever it is, Jack, it's alright.”

He doesn't relax, but his arm winds around the Doctor's shoulders, and then his other arm too and he is clinging with desperate strength. The Doctor settles himself on the bed with him so he isn't bent so awkwardly. “You didn't open the box? No scans, no… no anything?”

Now truly alarmed about the scale of this catastrophe, the Doctor is glad he has learned to be cautious in the wake of that turbulence. “I scanned for your vortex manipulator. Nothing else.”

“Alright, that's… maybe that's alright.” Holding the Doctor close, Jack rocks him a little bit, absently. “Gods, I hope that’s alright. Are we in the vortex?”

“No. I'd never have made it back to you if I left, we only barely made it anywhere near as it was. It would have been… bad, it looked like.”

A hysterical laugh, or sob, the Doctor can’t tell, bubbles up from Jack’s chest. “One of my worst revivals,” he says, voice breaking, and swallows convulsively.

“It’s alright,” the Doctor tries to reassure him. “We’ll make it come out right.” But it doesn’t seem to help much. “What can you tell me?”

“Nothing, not a single thing. You can’t be involved in this timeline, Doctor, I’m sorry. Please,” he says, closing his eyes, turning his head away, “trust me?”

“Always,” the Doctor replies, but again it doesn't have the effect he is hoping for.

“The things I wish I didn't know about _always_ ,” his Captain says, and he sounds so unutterably world-weary that the Doctor's hearts break a little for him, again. He pushes himself up, turns Jack’s head back toward him, and kisses him, tracing his lips lightly with the tip of his tongue, trying not to betray the anxious twisting in his belly. Long gone in Jack’s timeline though he may be, if anything remains between them perhaps he can still do some good here.

Jack doesn’t respond at first; he doesn’t react at all. Eyes closed, shields up, he is offering no clues whatsoever, and the Doctor regrets his impulsiveness almost immediately. He is pulling away, about to apologise when Jack groans, and his lips part, and the tension flows out of him like water; the Doctor allows himself a small smile of satisfaction. After a minute, arms still tight around him, Jack mumbles, “Yes,” against the Doctor’s lips, “please, yes, but take us into the vortex first.”

Beginning a half-hearted attempt to untangle himself, the Doctor warns, “I won’t be able to come back -” when he hears the TARDIS’s engines start by themselves. “Who’s in charge here?” he demands.

His Captain’s lips quirk up, which makes it entirely worth it. “You are, of course. Thank you, gorgeous.” Then he pulls the Doctor back down into a much more vigorous kiss and begins undressing him in such a familiar, entitled way that it casts serious doubt on his words.

“You don’t believe that for a second.” There’s not a lot of undressing for the Doctor to do; not a stitch of whatever Jack had been wearing had survived the explosion. His hands roam under the blanket, though, stymieing Jack’s attempts to get his shirt off.

But Jack pauses, and regards him with an honesty too raw and painful to look at directly. “I’ve never believed anything else.” It’s suddenly hard to breathe, and he just watches as Jack finishes dispensing with his clothing, throws the blanket aside, and pulls the Doctor over top of him. “Be with me here, now,” he whispers, brushing fingertips across the Doctor’s forehead, down his cheek, along the line of his jaw, “and help me remember how to hope.”

“My Jack,” the Doctor promises, bending his head to kiss his lover’s neck, bite gently at his throat.

“Yes,” Jack says, “yours.” It sounds as if it is being pulled from him unwillingly, and the Doctor doesn’t say anything else lest he ask too much of a desperate man.

-+-+-+-

Jack decides it is safe to use the TARDIS to retrieve his Vortex manipulator, so long as they do so well after the explosion; he is less sure about letting the Doctor help him fix it, and he absolutely forbids the Doctor returning again. _That_ is a bit startling, because Jack knows very well the usual consequences of forbidding the Doctor something. But he looks so completely terrified, in that way of his that looks like anger to the unfamiliar, when he says, “And no loopholes, Doctor, no funny business, this is destroy-the-universe level stuff,” that the Doctor just nods.

“Scout's honour,” he offers, hoping to make Jack laugh. It gets a smile, anyway.

“You were never a scout.”

“I was so! Or, well, near enough to. Time Tots Archaic Methods and Mechanisms. I did quite well.” Reluctantly, one side of his mouth slides upward. “It, ah, wasn’t very popular.”

Jack snorts. “Shouldn’t imagine so. Bunch of arrogant sods, heads so far up their own arses…”

“Oh, you’ve met?” Which, although it seems like the obvious response, sends Jack stumbling to a halt, looking as if he might actually be biting his tongue.

“Not at all,” he says, completely ignoring the Doctor's sudden, insistent, and entirely legitimate need-to-know, “in any case, _no_ , Doctor, if you’re going to bend time into pretzels you’re going to have unanswered questions, _in any case_ -” he pauses, and takes a deep breath. “See you on the other side.” He leans in for a quick kiss for luck, then raises hand to wrist and disappears.

Dashing back to the TARDIS, the Doctor tugs on Jack's timeline - it's almost second nature by now - and finds his next destination. He is bouncing on his toes impatiently by the time Jack revives, but his first gasping breath turns to a coughing fit as some of the sand he was buried in finds its way to his lungs, and the Doctor can’t very well require answers of a man in his condition. Brushing ineffectually at the remaining sand, he wonders what it was this time, but he has long since given up hope of explanations for every death.

“Water,” Jack says, when he finishes coughing, “I don’t care what kind or how much, fuck, you can drown me if you want -”

“I’m not going to _drown_ you, Jack -”

“Throw me in the swimming pool, drop me in a lake, push me out into a tidal storm, I don’t care -”

“As if I’d go to all this trouble just to throw you in a lake.” Pulling Jack’s arm over his shoulders, the Doctor hoists him to his feet. “Come along, Captain.” It doesn’t interrupt his monologue but he does move his feet. After installing him in a very large bath the TARDIS provides, where Jack promptly submerges himself until the Doctor has to pull him back up to breathe, the Time Lord loses any further ability to ignore the burning curiosity. Holding Jack’s head above water, as gently as he can when the insufferable man is apparently determined to drown _himself_ , he demands, “Did you do it? Save the world or whatever it was? Don’t drink the bath, Jack, honestly -” He offers the glass of water the TARDIS provides, and it is gone in seconds. “Look, I don’t usually ask, but what in blazes were you doing?”

“Dying of thirst, you stupid alien larker! I wasn’t saving the world.” Glaring askance at the Doctor, he holds out his hand for another glass of water.

Ignoring the abuse and the hand both, the Doctor clarifies, “No, last time. With the blowing up, and the fish.”

“Oh! Right, that. Sorry,” his Captain says, with an arch look, “spoilers.” Then he blinks. “The… fish?”

“Jack! You can't - at least tell me if it worked, whatever it was, you were _terrified_ , you can't just -” But Jack just leaves behind a cheshire grin as he sinks beneath the water again. The Doctor pulls him back up, shakes him a bit. “Captain!”

“Too messy. Can't say.”

“You're _enjoying_ this!”

“Oh, yes,” Jack says, clearly relishing the schadenfreude. “Look, I don't look like the world is ending anymore, do I? That's all you're getting.”

Scowling, arms crossed obstinately, the Doctor watches his Captain down another glass of water. “Fine.”

“What fish?”

Pulling himself to his feet, the Doctor says shortly, “The ones that were grazing on your corpse,” and stomps out of the room.

“Go find something less morbid to do with your life!” Jack calls after him; quite infuriatingly, given his recent situation.

-+-+-+-

“Oh good, it’s you,” says Jack, unexpectedly.

“What?” Things haven’t been entirely congenial, the last few rescues; but then it is completely unpredictable, from the Doctor’s perspective, how he will be greeted any particular time.

“I’m sorry about last time,” Jack continues, sitting up.

“ _What?_ ” The Doctor is not at all following this conversation.

Jack holds his hand out, and the Doctor helps him to his feet. “I sent you away,” he explains. “I know it hurt you. Now I know why you wouldn’t believe me when I said I never would.” Ah. That baffling and painful rescue attempt that had resulted in sending him to his rest cure.

“It was a long time ago,” he attempts to pass it off lightly, but this is Jack. He smiles, and settles himself in a jumpseat.

“You do get to missing the old desktops,” he says quietly, looking around, which makes very little sense; the Doctor doesn’t miss the dark and gloomy styles of his previous selves at all. “But that’s neither here nor there. I sent you away because, as you like to say, I wasn’t safe. I'd just lost - family, I’d just lost _everything_ …” It can’t have been that long; he still has the haunted look of a survivor who sees their losses every time they close their eyes. “I couldn't save any of them. I couldn't change it. But,” he says carefully, meeting the Doctor's eyes, “you could have.”

The Doctor’s eyes widen as he realises what Jack is saying. “And you -”

“I might have asked. I might have begged. Could you have denied me, then?”

“Jack…” Staring into eyes with the weight of millenia behind them, the Doctor is beginning to understand that this is no longer _his_ Jack, either. “I don't think so, no,” he admits. “Even now…”

Jack smiles sadly. “And I value that trust highly. But no matter how long I live, I won’t see Time like you do, Doctor. Trust yourself.” Standing, he reaches out to cup the Doctor’s face in both hands and draw him in for a slow, deep kiss; it feels awfully like a goodbye. Then he lays their foreheads together, and with a wry smile says, “Don’t let me keep you.”

It was meant as a goodbye, the Doctor comes to understand as he continues on. Jack greets him with the same melancholy smile every time - the times he is capable of smiling - but it has been so long for him that the Doctor is just a stubborn ghost from his past, dearly beloved perhaps but long ago lost and mourned. At times it is deeply uncomfortable, and the Doctor considers stopping, in the cold loneliness of goodbye after goodbye. But Jack never tells him to again, and every time he ends up going on, forward and forward, blindly into a future he will never otherwise inhabit.

-+-+-+-  


_There was a time you let me know_  
_What's really going on below_  
_But now you never show it to me, do you?_  
_And remember when I moved in you_  
_The holy dark was moving too_  
_And every breath we drew was Hallelujah_  
  
_( -Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen)_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Inspired in part by[One Day by Trobadora.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5485190)_   
>    
>  _The Doctor quotes from A Travelogue for Exiles, by Karl Shapiro._


	15. It's the worst days

He doesn't always have any effect at all. There is the time he opens the door and all he can see is a forest of slowly moving… _legs_ , in fact, legs as thick as tree trunks. The ground shifts and trembles beneath them.

“Hello!” he calls, poking his head out the doors. “Small talking blue box here, who are you?” No one answers, and he claps his hands happily. “Don't know, do I? How exciting! Now where did I leave that…” He can't possibly venture out looking for Jack, anyway, so he closes the door and commences rummaging about. He threw out the user manual ages ago, of course, pointless thing, but he has kept ever so many other reference books.

“Ah hah!” Perched on a ladder on the third level of the library, he finally spots his quarry. It's a stretch but then he does have long arms, at the moment. “Here we are. Professor Thripted's Flora and Fauna of the Universe.” He climbs down, book tucked beneath his arm. “I thought I had it memorized.” Paging through it, he meanders back to the console room, pulls open the door again to attempt to discover features other than _large legs, travels very slowly in enormous herds_ , and finds someone has knocked the TARDIS onto her side. The door, happily, is facing up, so he still has a, well, not _good_ , exactly, but not a worse view.

By the time he determines that they truly are Thurolian giant lepids, in unexpected abundance, the herd is thinning out. As the dust begins to die down, he feels the bright flare of Jack's revival again and carefully climbs out of the TARDIS to go fetch him. Jack hasn't bothered getting up yet, is instead staring at the sky and muttering to himself. He sits up as the Doctor comes into view, unsurprised at his presence as usual.

“Jack!” the Doctor exclaims happily, holding out a hand to help his Captain up. “Do you know what those are?”

Jack, however, looks distinctly unhappy. “Big,” he suggests, checking his pockets. “Heavy,” he offers, when he notices the Doctor's frown, and looks around him. “Relentless?”

“No! Well, yes,” he says, brain catching up with his mouth. “But Jack, they're _extinct_!”

Giving up his search, Jack just stares at him for a long moment. “No,” he says, drawing the word out doubtfully, “they're not.” Groaning painfully, he lets the Doctor pull him up from the churned mess of muddy gore surrounding him.

“Exactly! They’re not. This is a good three thousand years too late to be finding them, but here they are! It’s wonderful, don’t you think?” But Jack just gives him a disgusted look and turns away. “Jack?”

“I don't _enjoy_ being crushed to a bloody pulp, Doctor, do you know what it feels like to have your head popped like -”

“Yes,” the Doctor interrupts, nodding hastily. “No; but I quite take your point.”

Jack sighs. “I’m not feeling too charitable toward them or anyone else on this planet right now. Don’t push it.”

“Ah,” the Doctor says, disappointed. It’s alright, of course it’s alright, he’s not here to heap more expectations on his Captain, he’s here to… well. He didn’t do any good here whatsoever, actually, except whatever it is worth to Jack not to wake up alone. Stuffing his fidgeting hands into his pockets, shuffling his feet, he offers, “Need anything?”

“No,” Jack says shortly, “sorry, thanks. Well,” he pauses, weighing a decision, then shrugs fatalistically. “I don’t suppose you have any celxite?”

Brows climbing, the Doctor straightens his back. “Might do. Ah -” But either he trusts Jack or he doesn't, really, at this point; he can't keep coming round if he is going to pretend his unwanted presence entitles him to answers. “I'll go look,” he decides, and some of the tension in Jack's shoulders falls away. “Come in for a moment? Mind your step.” A little bit of good, he decides; better than some days.

-+-+-+-

He miscalculates one day, digging Jack out of a collapsed building. Jack strongly prefers him not to use the TARDIS for rescue unless there is truly no other choice, and the Doctor agrees, even if he dislikes the extra time it leaves Jack suffering. Too often there are other people trapped with Jack whose only chance is a successful rescue effort. Frequently there are people there to help him, and he plays bloodhound, leading them to his Captain.

This time he has very little support, and what remains of the building turns out to be much less stable than he expected. He has reached Jack, freed him and set him up with oxygen for when he revives, but as he is scanning for anyone else in the building his sonic jostles something loose and there is a terrible grinding sound, crushing pain, and then darkness.

Gradually he becomes aware of motion - motion and _pain_ \- pain and the sound of his Captain's voice, and he holds to that anchor with all the strength he has.

“I never asked for this.” Jack’s voice is bitter as he cradles the Doctor's broken body against his own. “I didn't ask for any of this, Doctor. I ought to just take you back to the TARDIS and let her take care of you, quit wasting my time fixing you after these bouts of quixotic idiocy.” He sighs, and stands, hefting the Doctor in his arms. It is all the Doctor can do to focus on the sound of his voice instead of the pain coating every sense in jagged white. “But instead another awful thing happens and sometimes I get _you_ , this broken you, consumed by guilt and practically suicidal, and then I have to take care of you, too, and I can't even… as long as you're here…” With slow, careful steps he is taking them both back to the TARDIS, and this time the Doctor knows he will be abandoned there, in favor of whatever Jack wants that can't happen whilst he's here. He can't muster anything more than resigned acceptance.

“My Captain,” he whispers, hoping Jack will understand; he owes the Doctor nothing. When he wakes in the TARDIS, Jack is gone.

-+-+-+-

He doesn’t seriously consider stopping. How should he, when no one else will come?

Sometimes it's space again; those are usually easy. Sometimes Jack sends him away immediately, with barely a word spoken; sometimes he seems to enjoy the company, in a painful sort of way, and clings to the reminder of a long ago past the Doctor provides for a little while. Once in a while, Jack gently shoos him away and disappears into the infirmary. The Doctor doesn’t argue anymore, just does his best to distract himself and puts on the tea when he starts to feel that itch under his skin again. But most of the time Jack is simply tolerant of this ghost of a long-lost lover; it's a more useful haunting than most people get, he points out one day when the Doctor tries to apologise.

The instabilities the Doctor targets seem to become less frequent as he goes along. He couldn't guess, at this point, how long Jack has lived. As well, a fair percentage of them the TARDIS can’t or won't take him to; sometimes he is surprised he can continue to reach Jack’s timeline at all.

Occasionally he arrives to find his selection criteria have led him astray. There are a surprising number of situations a man like Jack can find, apparently, that involve dying on a more-than-daily basis. More than once the Doctor has come across him posing as a stage performer with a particularly convincing trick, or doing apparently necessary tasks in environments dangerous to the fragile mortals he loves. He has also dropped in on a number of extended operations Jack has been involved in, and has learned to be cautious. His Captain always forgives him his interference but it is never pleasant; too often it feels like Jack is indulging a child when his play gets in the way of the adults.

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The Doctor returns to Bellacosa once by accident; no Jack waiting for him, no little house in view, just a narrow mountain lake. He considers the rather nice view for a minute or two, then turns back to the TARDIS. “In the lake, then, do you think?” The Doctor sighs. “He hates drowning.”

So he rigs up a clamp and a winch and goes fishing. The water is deep but clear, and he locates the wreckage he assumes is trapping Jack without much trouble. It seems, when he gets a good look at it, to have been a small flying vehicle; he doubts it is repairable. Jack’s body is trailing along, foot caught in the safety restraints. Grinning briefly, the Doctor mutters, “Sloppy, Captain,” and cuts him free. He'll be embarrassed once he's… well.

It never really gets easier, finding Jack dead, whether it be by new or familiar means; neither, he supposes, does the dying. Better than watching it happen, though, watching eyes he has seen dark in arousal so many times dilate to black in death, watching him overtaken by a stillness the Doctor can never forget causing. He presses as much water from Jack's lungs as he can, rolls him onto his side, and wonders if he ought to stay. Telling himself it's to make sure Jack can get back home, he does, and begins poking around the wreckage whilst he waits.

Once his Captain is less bloated and blue, and over the awful coughing fit, he does indeed sound a bit sheepish. “Thanks,” he says, and coughs again. “Fuck, I hate drowning. Tried too hard to save the flitter, not hard enough to save me.”

“Well,” the Doctor replies, head buried in the open chassis in front of the passenger compartment, “I think I can get most of this working again, actually, do you have -” he pops upright and is relieved to see Jack back to his normal coloration, arms resting on drawn up knees. “Oh, you're looking much better, well done. Get you both fixed up then.”

Jack looks him over carefully, then grins. “Had a run of boring rescues, have you? Have at it, I'm sure, toolkit'll be behind the last seat. I,” he adds, hauling himself to his feet and dropping his sodden jacket to the ground, “am going to borrow your shower.” He saunters off to the TARDIS, shedding clothes as he goes. The Doctor watches appreciatively, but without a clear invitation won't follow; it has been a very, very long time, in Jack's timeline. He rummages around until he finds the promised toolkit, then returns to tinkering. The wings are, admittedly, a loss, but the navcom is just as waterproof as Jack's vortex manipulator and the rest of the electronics won't be difficult to fix. It's something to do, and obviously Jack cares about the contraption. They will haul it back to his house and he can get the rest repaired, and hopefully not crash it into any more nearly inaccessible places. But if he does… well, then the Doctor will come back.

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It is anyone's guess what Jack is doing out here, crumpled on the dusty pink ground of this marginally habitable planetoid. Jack can't tell him at the moment, certainly. There is a long line of footprints trailing off toward the horizon, punctuated by smears in the dust where he has fallen on the way. The Doctor doesn't bother with the containment suit. Although the thin atmosphere is not enough to sustain life, neither is it poisonous, and Jack is not far from the TARDIS.

He revives before the Doctor reaches him, which is nice, because it is still very uncomfortable to be in contact with him when he does. Nice, at least, until the Doctor sees the frustrated glare his Captain is aiming up at him.

“Shall I go?” the Doctor asks, resigned. Ruined some long game again, just by showing up.

To his surprise, Jack shakes his head. “Tech,” he says, with what little air he can draw into his lungs. “ _Don't_ ,” he adds, as the Doctor reaches for his screwdriver. His voice doesn't carry well.

“Don't use tech; that's why you don't have your vortex manipulator?”

Jack nods. “Left,” _behind_ , the Doctor assumes. “Detect.”

Frowning, the Doctor asks, “But how did you get here, then?”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Fell.” He still hasn't got up, apparently having decided to use this life on conversation and not movement; but it is rather awkward standing here having a conversation with a man slowly asphyxiating.

“Look, can I just bring you over here where you can breathe?” But Jack looks doubtful. “Please? It's not going to make anything _worse_ , surely.” Shrugging, Jack holds out his hand to be pulled up with a distinct air of _on your head be it_. Taking it, the Doctor tugs him up and toward himself. As Jack reoxygenates, held up with an arm about his waist, the Doctor asks, “Do you do that often, then? Fall?”

With a wry glance, Jack answers, “Occasionally, yes.” The Doctor has the feeling he is missing a joke somewhere, but he can't think where; familiar feeling, in any case. “Odds are you've lit up their screens like a catobrash - which yes, I knew you might -”

“And you still did this?”

“Needs doing,” Jack says, almost viciously, and the Doctor's brows shoot up.

“Right, then.” Straightening, the Doctor rubs his hands together in anticipation. “How can I help?”

“Distraction? I know that's usually me, but you can't do this part. Maybe the TARDIS will keep them busy.” He doesn't sound enthusiastic, but maybe that's just the oxygen deprivation. He does look like he is enjoying breathing.

“We could just go there,” the Doctor suggests, still not sure where exactly that would be. “Wherever. I can bring her in silent. And not to criticize, but you've this long trail of footprints -” he points.

Shaking his head, Jack says, “They're shielded against almost anything, I wouldn't like to try it until I've got in there and shut things down.”

“Then I'll drop you off silently somewhere else, and be a distraction here.” One way or another, he is determined to be useful. “Somewhere closer, maybe?”

Still looking unflatteringly resigned, Jack shrugs a shoulder. “May as well try that. Before we get blown up,” and turns toward the TARDIS.

“Yes, ah -” glancing at the empty sky quizzically, the Doctor follows him. “Let's do.”

As soon as he closes the door behind him, Jack throws the lever to dematerialise and settles himself in a jumpseat. Crossing his arms, he leans back and surveys the console room slowly. “Knew you'd manage to get me in here again somehow.” The determined facade of resigned annoyance is falling away to an aching wistfulness as he looks around; his eyes slip closed and he swallows thickly. “Missed you too, beautiful,” he whispers.

After his reluctance to accept help, after so many rescues in which Jack remained distant, it is not at all what the Doctor was expecting. Slowly he makes his way over, leans against the console opposite his Captain; wonders if he ought to apologise. Jack never wants his apologies.

“I didn't mean to make it worse,” he settles on, finally.

“I know. Don't worry about it,” Jack answers, deep blue eyes opening to regard him appraisingly. “You'll recall I make my own choices.”

Unbidden, the words fall out: “You didn't choose this.”

One eyebrow raises, then smooths back down. “Ah. That's… I didn't actually think you were conscious enough to remember that. I'm sorry. It's true, but I was also having a remarkably bad day. Week. Life. You weren't… who I wanted to see, at the time, and I took it out on you a bit.” He sighs, and holds out his hand to the Doctor. “It's hard for me, sometimes, you have no idea. And it's the worst days.” Fingers firmly interlaced, he pulls the Doctor to him. “But there will always be a place for you with me, Doctor. Don't doubt it.”

Not sure what to do, the Doctor stands before this man who is and is not his Captain, but most assuredly still is the guiding star he is following into eternity. “You make me feel so young now,” he admits, and watches a smile start to creep across Jack’s face. “It's quite disconcerting, if I stop and think about it.”

“I won’t have you calling me old,” Jack mock-scolds, and tugs the Doctor forward again, off balance. His other hand is on the Doctor’s hip, pulling him down, until with a surprised yelp he is sat straddling Jack’s lap. “Although it does feel rather like robbing the cradle -”

“Which you must do on the regular -”

“Haven’t much of a choice, have I? But I heard River used your cradle once -”

“ _Technically_ … oh, shut up!” the Doctor groans, and kisses him. Nothing seems quite right though; they aren’t used to each other anymore, too many years removed. After a minute he breaks away, suggests diffidently, “Hadn’t we better -”

“Yeah, back to dying,” Jack agrees, but he’s running his fingers delicately over the Doctor’s face, brushing cheekbone with thumb, tracing the line of his jaw; memorising, or remembering. “Just another minute. It’s been a long time.”

So the Doctor stays where he is, hands absently smoothing dusty clothing, asking nothing, as Jack relearns his face with lines of fire.

“She likes it when you're here,” he says, when the silence becomes too much.

“Feels more like home,” Jack whispers, and tilts the Doctor's head down to lay their foreheads together. It's not how the Doctor would have put it, but this has been Jack's home as well, and no one the TARDIS loves ever really forgets her. There is something about having him here, though. Restful is not the right word, he can't imagine Jack being _restful;_ but settled, maybe. A deep settledness to things when he is about, that seems to increase with age and would probably drive the Doctor mad to live with at this point. But for a little while… he could stay here very happily, for a little while.

But Jack had seemed quite determined to do _something_ on that planet.

Torn between curiosity and stillness, he says, without moving away, “You seemed very busy going somewhere, earlier.”

“Hmm,” Jack agrees vaguely, hands moving slowly up and down the Doctor's back, thoughts a pleasant, indistinct cloud, brought comfortingly close by contact. “But I have all the time there is, and it flows by so quickly now, if I let it. If I want to spend it _with_ anyone, I have to take hold with both hands, hold onto every second I can get. You know that.”

Feeling rather as though someone had taken a scouring pad to his brain, the Doctor murmurs, “Do I?”

His Captain chuckles. “You'll remember.” When his lips meet the Doctor's again, it feels breathtakingly ephemeral, a fleeting brush of flame from a distant star, and the Doctor fists both his hands in Jack's coat and holds on tight. Lord of Time he might be, but too soon the moment passes, like any other.

“Don’t be a hero,” Jack says, poking at the scanner to find an out of the way place to resume his horrifying trek. “They can’t hurt the TARDIS, but they can hurt you. Quite a lot, for a very long time. And… please stick around, for a bit, since you’re here.” He glances up at the Doctor, expressionless. “If they catch me, it’ll be even longer.”

Swallowing against the sudden sick churn of his stomach, the Doctor asks, “Why are you doing this?”

“It wasn’t our first idea, believe me. But we’re out of others, and it’s not a bad one. For once it’s useful that I’m an old-fashioned hundred percent biological; not many of us around right now. Mostly religious isolationists, and me, and I don’t make a thing of it. Get the implants every once in a while to confuse the trail.” He shrugs. “But they don’t last. So here I am, undetectable so long as I leave all the gadgets at home, at least by the instrumentation here.”

“Including the gadgets for breathing.”

“Just so. Remarkably safe place, it turns out.” Then he grins, that same rakish Captain Jack grin after so many years. “But I’m remarkably persistent.”

Fussing with the controls just to Jack's left, the Doctor snorts. “I doubt anyone yet has figured out how to adequately account for the stubbornness of Captain Jack Harkness in their models. People have probably earned doctorates for their papers on this unknown universal constant - ow!” He rubs his shoulder. “No call for violence - Jack!” he cries, suddenly alarmed. “You're going in unarmed?”

Jack had looked up quickly at his cry, but now is regarding him with growing consternation. “Well, yes. Didn't think _you'd_ object to that.”

“Not… as such, I suppose, but… why? You made it sound dangerous.”

“Essentially, because I have to. But, Doctor,” Jack says, turning to face him, “you’ve misunderstood what we’re doing here.” The Doctor takes a half step back at the fierce look on Jack’s face. “This is not an assault, or a war; it’s a mission of mercy. There are people in there who need help. I’m here to take down the defenses; I never expected to get back out on my own. If you can distract them for a while, we have a much better chance.”

“Oh, Jack,” the Doctor breathes, heartsick at this evidence that the damage he did so long ago lingers on. “Dying in place of others is not what you are for.”

Jack’s face softens slightly. “You’re not wrong, Doctor; I just haven’t found it a very useful truth in my life. I can, and do, prevent a great deal of suffering, at what I feel is an acceptable price. You can’t make that choice for me.”

Folding his arms, he glares angrily at Jack. “This is a terrible plan, Jack.”

One eyebrow goes up. “Nonetheless.”

Frustrated, the Doctor’s fists come down hard on the console. “There has to be another way to do this!”

“There isn’t.” He is infuriatingly calm; Jack is _frequently_ infuriating. “We’ve been working on it for years. Doctor, what is this? You’ll rescue me from any ridiculous situation I get myself into without a word of censure, but try to do something useful with myself and suddenly you’ve slipped your shank?”

It stings, but that doesn't make him right. “It's that attitude, Jack, that _useful_ means throwing yourself on the grenade, that dying is just another _tool_ , that all of your suffering means nothing.” Turning away from the weight of time in Jack's eyes, the Doctor paces. “You kept telling me that there's so much more to see; well there _is_. I've been callous, I've been cruel to you, Jack, I've asked far too much of you; and maybe it's so long ago now that there's no way for me to fix it, to make restitution. I'm more sorry than I can tell you. But you don't have to sacrifice yourself. You don't have to justify yourself.” Stopping again before Jack, he tries to convey his sincerity, his regret. “You _exist_ , and that is amazing. You are worth saving, Jack.”

Reaching out, Jack straightens his bowtie, smooths the collar of his jacket, briefly touches his chin. “Those eyes of yours…” He is smiling, but it is full of sadness or maybe nostalgia, or maybe something else entirely. “The guilt is still eating you alive, isn't it.” That isn’t at _all_ where the Doctor meant this to go, but Jack continues over his attempts to argue, shaking his head. “Granting that you've had an effect on me over the years - and it’s more true than you know - but granting that, how could I possibly not believe I’m worth saving?”

For the second time today the Doctor feels as though his brain has had a good scouring. Jack waits silently as he stares at him, feeling things shift under the surface, watching the idea he's had of Jack take a sharp twist widdershins and come into focus. No victim he, not of fate, nor circumstance, nor the Doctor’s madness, but a man who has come to know the price and the value of things through long, brutal experience. What has the Doctor been doing, after all, but chasing down the years to save Jack from fates that, while sometimes horrific, could never be permanent; and running out his own life to do it? Not once has it been because the universe required it of him. Each time, every decision to go on, all for love of Jack.

“Alright,” he says; swallows, and nods, and sets his hand on the console with a silent apology to the TARDIS. “Alright. I… Shall we?”

“Don’t worry,” his Captain, still magnificently _human_ through it all, says bracingly. “You’re good at distraction.” Disarmingly, disruptively, disconcertingly human; but his eyes are kind.

Shaking his head, the Doctor laments, “I suppose this is what people mean when they say my plans are mad.” Jack flashes him a quick, toothy grin. “Blowing it up seems more your style.”

“Doing things a little differently, these days.”

“Why?” the Doctor asks, curious at the change.

Turning back to the scanner with a wry half smile, Jack says, “When people pray for mercy, and they get me instead, I don’t want them to be disappointed.”

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	16. Just walk away

Jack is being held captive in another wretched _facility_ ; the signs say Hrovil-Vasilura Laboratories, which conveys no information to the Doctor. The equipment and section names are clearly life-sciences related. Although he pokes around briefly the Doctor can find no easy way to get to him, and someone is continuing to kill him at regular intervals which needs to stop immediately. Giving up, he returns to the cupboard in which he parked the TARDIS and makes the short hop to retrieve his Captain.

He feels Jack die again _during_ materialisation, which is quite concerning, and he throws the lever to take them back into the Vortex immediately he's secured Jack's body. Cause of death seems to be gunshot wound to the head, so he doesn't have long to wait; previous experience has taught him that the revival time from that tends to be surprisingly short, considering all that complex brain matter.

He is hanging back, as he still tends to do when Jack revives despite the acute discomfort having faded over time, and it is probably only that which saves him.

As soon as there is air in his lungs Jack is shouting, “Get back! Get back, put me back, it's a trap!” and such is the Doctor's unthinking trust in his Captain that he is already flinging himself past the console, toward the stairs, before Jack gets a full three words out.

“Shields,” he yells at the TARDIS, “containment, _something_ -” and then the room is engulfed in fire and noise and he has a split second to see Jack ripped apart by an explosion before the blast throws him back and his world goes dark.

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Someone is screaming. The TARDIS is calling urgently to him, so it's not her, and the Doctor wonders briefly, groggily, if it's _him_. He doesn't feel anything much, so he can't think why he would be, and come to think of it, this is a very strange perspective he has on the console room, all sort of… sideways, and not exactly floor level, because actually that would be fairly normal. He is lying on something very uncomfortable, and then the pain hits him like a brick to the head, massive and sudden and overwhelming.

But it's still not him screaming, he realises after a minute. It's Jack.

The thought sends him immediately to his feet - or at least he tries, but he still can't feel half his body, he just hadn't noticed that that much pain was coming from an incomplete set of nerves. So instead he rolls awkwardly down the stairs where he had fetched up and doesn't dare move again, because even for him some things aren't repairable.

“Jack,” he tries to call, but it comes out more of a croak. “Can't you do something for him?” he implores the TARDIS. “Better he were unconscious for this part.” Jack has respectable psychic barriers but they won't stop the TARDIS, and the pain he goes through when he revives before his body is repaired would be called unendurable by anyone who had a choice. The screaming cuts off abruptly, and the Doctor is in the middle of saying, with intense gratitude, “Thank you, dear heart,” when he is also cut off, and silence but for a faint humming falls in the destroyed room.

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“I didn't mean me,” he says, opening his eyes, and then, “Oh,” because it is the white ceiling of the infirmary that greets him this time. “Jack!” he exclaims, panicked, suddenly remembering, and tries to sit up but there is something across his chest holding him down. The TARDIS is urging him to calm but it is all but impossible under the circumstances. She gives him a good shove and it is then he notices the warm weight on his shoulder; Jack's increasingly silver-haired head, solid and welcome, lost in exhausted slumber but hale and hearty as far as he can see. The relief is overpowering and he lays his head back down with a deep sigh, content finally to remain where he is.

Initially he occupies himself making small exploratory movements of his limbs: arms, hands, and fingers all present and accounted for, legs now happily accessible as well. He can even twitch his toes, he is fairly certain; can't see them to verify. Spinal injury as he had suspected then, in those brief panicked moments, but apparently not so bad as to be irreparable, thank… thank mercy, he concludes, with the beginning of a smile. Perhaps it is worth something, to love mercy's avatar. The pain has contracted until it is mostly a pounding headache, so overall he is doing quite well for having just been blown up. He winces at the thought. Not at all blown up; that was all Jack, who is indeed doing quite well, considering, and what in Time was going on there? Hoping Jack wakes soon, he eventually gives up his information-starved musing and lets himself drift, waiting and healing.

Barely an hour later Jack stirs, snorts and lifts his head, and the Doctor meets his concerned gaze with a smile. “ _Doctor_ ,” he sighs in vast relief, and lays his forehead down again briefly. His eyes are suspiciously wet when he raises his head, and he rubs at them. “I knew… it wouldn't kill you, I hoped, gods… I told them they were going to destroy the universe if they succeeded! Shortsighted megalomaniacal bastards. Our timelines are too complex for this kind of fuckery.”

“Definitely not dead,” the Doctor affirms. “Thanks to your warning. Can I get up yet?” Lying still, always one of his least favorite things to do.

“No,” Jack says immediately, and sets a hand on his chest. “Oh, no, don't look at me like that…” His voice sounds constricted but he gives the Doctor a long-suffering look. “You never change. I'll scan you again, but no, I really don't think so yet.” Whilst he gets the scanner the Doctor wonders at the change in his reception this time; perhaps it is simply down to the near-death experience on his part, but Jack seems more welcoming, more loving, less resignedly tolerant, than he has in a long time. “No,” his Captain says again, interrupting his thoughts. “Another couple hours at least. I’m sorry,” he adds at the Doctor’s sigh.

“You’d think I’d be old enough to accept these things with grace, I suppose,” the Doctor allows, resignedly. “But look, I can move my toes.”

Eyes smiling, Jack replies solemnly, “I would never be so foolish as to think that.” His face breaks into a grin briefly as the Doctor glares at him. “I do see one wriggling a bit.”

Disappointed, the Doctor subsides. “I was trying to move all of them.”

“Well.” Jack pats his chest, leans down to kiss his forehead. “Just wait a bit, you’ll be alright. Takes more than that to shut you down for long.” His voice is bracing but it reminds the Doctor that he has a bigger problem here.

“It was a trap then? For me particularly?”

Jack nods. “For you particularly. Someone has apparently been paying a lot of attention to me, noticed the stories of the mysterious blue box following me around. I don’t think this is spoilers, since they were looking for _you_ , but…” He pauses, then continues carefully. “You’ve encountered the Silence?”

A deep stillness falls over the Doctor. Everything, _everything_ , they try to take away from him; they took Amy, they took River, invaded the Earth, broke the very universe to try to get to him. They're still waiting for him. And now Jack. “Tell me,” he says, and there is the force of the Oncoming Storm in his voice.

Eyeing him warily but unconsciously straightening, Jack says, “I’m not sure the details are relevant at this point. I’m going to get rid of them, this group at least, and you can help if you like. No one uses me to hurt you.”

“ _Captain_. I’ll know their crimes.”

“That doesn’t work on me, Doctor,” Jack insists, but he is clearly struggling.

Flat on his back he may be, but he’s not stupid. Time may change them but Jack’s immortal soul still answers to the Doctor. “Yes,” he says confidently, “it does. _Tell me_.”

“They caught me up on Earth,” Jack begins, not entirely voluntarily if the dismayed expression on his face is anything to go by. “I end up back there every so often. I think… they were looking for a much younger me, but I didn’t realise… I made mistakes. Doctor, I really can’t -” The Doctor scowls at him. “It was pretty much the same thing as usual to start with,” he says quickly, by which the Doctor understands him to mean lethal examinations of his immortality, and his stomach clenches despite his cold fury. “But eventually they started talking about you. And then it… got personal.” Jack closes his mouth suddenly, teeth clicking together emphatically, and for all his efforts the Doctor can get nothing else from him regarding what he went through, leaving his imagination to run wild, fueled by too much experience; and Jack would know it would, which is truly chilling.

“You’re _protecting_ me,” he accuses, and Jack gives him a strange smile, equal parts _well done_ and _of course_ and _I’m sorry_. “I do the protecting,” the Doctor insists, deeply disturbed that Jack thinks he needs protecting after all he has already seen. Jack just shakes his head.

Eventually, when the Doctor is frustrated by his attempts to compel or cajole the information out of him, he continues, “Once they were bored of me, they stuck a bomb in me. Not the first time that's happened,” he adds, in a completely unreassuring aside, “and at least I knew about it this time. Triggered by revival and the TARDIS's energy signature. Then they just kept shooting me till you showed up, armed the bomb, and… you know the rest. I think they were hoping you'd be in contact when it went.”

Will those he loves always suffer for his sins? Or in this case, for reasons he doesn't even know? “I'm sorry,” the Doctor says, his culpability clear, staring into Jack's eyes and willing him to belief, “I'm so sorry, Jack, for putting you in a position where this made sense to someone. If I weren't popping in and out on this mad quixotic quest -” Jack himself had named it thus, long ago.

But his Captain shakes his head. “It is what it is, Doctor. Sometimes it's been the only thing that keeps me going, the thought that even if the worst happens, I won't be left entirely alone. I can keep stepping into the unknown, with that to hold to.” It is the first time in a long time he has said anything of the sort, and again it seems very strange to the Doctor, if gratifying.

“I'll stop them,” the Doctor says, not sure what else to offer in the circumstances.

“We'll stop them,” Jack corrects, “when you can walk. Try wriggling your toes again.” But although he can manage both big toes now as well as twitching his ankles, it's not good enough, and it is a terribly undignified situation altogether. “Hungry?” Jack offers, but the Doctor shakes his head; he has no appetite after contemplating what Jack has been suffering through. “I could read to you. I'd been doing hiatal vector theory -” he chuckles at the face the Doctor makes, “History of Earth's diaspora? I did that recently, fascinating period… No? I suppose there's always poetry.”

“If you would,” the Doctor agrees. The volume Jack fetches is new to him, perhaps not surprisingly considering all the years his Captain has on him at this point, although since he presumably got it out of the Doctor's library… well, it's Jack. Mysteries abound.

-+-+-+-

It is nearly three hours and another short nap until Jack finally lets him up, well past when he can move and feel everything again. His ability to compel answers or action from Jack is apparently strictly limited to subjects not involving his own wellbeing, which is… not really surprising, in hindsight.

As they return to the console room to assess the damage, the Doctor silently lays a bet with himself, and lets Jack go first. He stops short just inside. “What the hell?”

The Doctor smiles as he looks over Jack’s shoulder; got it in one. Slipping by, he pulls his Captain after him by the hand. Jack is staring around slowly, eyes wondering in the dim golden glow. He reaches out, tentatively laying a hand on a branching coral column as they pass, and his feet come to a halt.

“What…”

“Backup console room. She keeps them archived.” He can’t tell if Jack is pleased, or distressed, or whether he clearly remembers back that far at all. Pointing toward the door, he says quietly, “You stood just there, and tried to look worldly.”

Jack snorts. “Very convincingly, I’m sure. Stepping from death into a fairy tale… Didn’t know what I was getting myself into.” He smiles at the Doctor. “Still rarely do. Not much has changed.”

 _Only everything_ , the Doctor doesn’t say, but his light mood is gone. “At least she doesn’t want me to rebuild it by hand this time,” he says instead.

“I’m not sure you could. It was… when I woke… _catastrophic_ will do.” And now he has taken Jack’s brief happiness as well. The Doctor drops his hand and turns away, goes to re-familiarise himself with the console. “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jack says softly. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

The TARDIS hums comfortingly and the Doctor turns to look back at his Captain, concerned. “She knows that, Jack.” But Jack just shakes his head again. After another moment, he drops his hand from the coral strut and joins the Doctor at the console.

“I’m going to destroy them, Doctor.” His voice is measured, matter-of-fact. “All their experiments, all their data, all their… everything they’ve done. Everything they have, here. I’ll kill people if I have to, but if not, they’ll have to forget. Years of their lives, irretrievably gone.” He is pulling no punches in regards to his intentions, and the Doctor stands frozen, head lowered, staring at the man he thought he knew. Jack turns to face him. “That’s not how you do things, I know. How much will you help with?”

“I won’t kill anyone,” he says automatically; he feels like a hypocrite but Jack doesn’t call him on it. “I don’t want you to kill anyone,” he adds.

“Then you’ll get them out of the way?”

Angrily, the Doctor draws himself up straight. “Don’t blackmail me, Captain, you won’t like where it gets you,” he warns. “I don’t accept your plan.”

Jack’s expression doesn’t change. “I’m not asking you to. It’s going to happen. You can go, and have no part in it; or you can help, and mitigate the effects.”

In almost any other circumstance, his response to such an ultimatum would be, has been, the third, unspoken option: _I will stop you_. But this is Jack, who has earned his trust a thousand times over; and this is the Silence, which has done immense harm in their pursuit of him, which he himself has unleashed lethal consequences upon with very little remorse. And this time… pushing aside the anger, the instinctive contrariness of being backed into a corner, he demands, “Why? _What did they do_ , Jack?”

For a minute, two minutes, three, Jack is silent, the stillness of his nature wrapping about him, anchoring him deep into Time; it feels like standing at the edge of the sea, or of space, taking in its shocking vastness, its edges lapping against him. The temptation to reach out and submerge himself is nearly irresistible, but it gives the Doctor time to remember that Jack would not pursue this destructive course without reason, and to wonder at the inflammatory way he declared his intentions. Is he _trying_ to drive the Doctor off?

“They were trying to find out how to use me,” Jack says finally, words slipping into the stillness between them like stones, smooth and discrete. “Like you did. I expect they’ll keep trying.”

“We need to stop them,” the Doctor says, shocked, and one corner of Jack’s mouth quirks upward. Too easy, the Doctor realises, as adamantly as he had resisted saying anything before, this was too easy; there is worse still hidden. Still, Jack has him sussed to a nicety, because this is _enough_. He is still responsible for Jack; not the way his younger self had tried to claim, but responsible for the pain he suffers, responsible for his safety in a universe that only wants to wring a _use_ from him. Responsible for stopping exactly this. “Jack, I'll, I can take care of it -” He is not quite sure how to voice his remaining objection. “I'd thought you'd taken up the standard for mercy. Isn't this - won't your gods -”

“They'll give me this one, I think,” Jack returns, voice low and implacable, belligerent stance softening slightly. “What was done here… it can't be allowed to continue. It's not safe, they're playing with far more than they understand. And they used me to hurt you. Both of you,” he clarifies, looking upward. “There are lines, and they crossed them.”

The Doctor is left with the uncomfortable impression that Jack _tolerates_ a great deal from the mortals around him, but now, like a volcano roused from its slumber, cannot be turned aside. “I'll get them out of your way,” he concedes, quietly.

-+-+-+-

It is an eerie place, deserted; corridors too wide, some with too few doors and some with too many, windows into darkness or strange noises behind blank facades. Experiments, Jack said, and - he had cut himself off before enumerating their sins further. The experimenters hadn’t been difficult to rout, in the event, apparently very used to the idea that a quick evacuation might be required. Taking their memories had been… distasteful. And unfortunate. But necessary. Some of them had been extraordinarily unhappy to see him.

Now in search of Jack, the Doctor’s footsteps echo as he makes his way toward that immortal flame. He is near the area the Doctor found him in originally, which isn’t where the Doctor would put any sort of central control or data repository; but who knows what logic drives kidnappers and murderers?

Pushing open a final door, he stops short. Not at all what he was expecting, the room is immense, filled with the ebbing hum of machinery. Underneath the astringent smell of disinfectant there is a riot of organic traces, the metallic tang of blood, cloying decay; all of it hauntingly familiar. Occupying half a wall is what looks like a miniaturised organics reclamation system, opposite it a stasis chamber, a cryopreservation unit, an autopsy table; there is every sort of implement for deconstructing and examining life but none, the Doctor realises as he slowly looks around, for nourishing it. There is nothing of healing here. Jack is methodically emptying syringes into a bank of closed tanks along the wall to the Doctor's right, and despite the utter inappropriateness of the timing, the Doctor can’t shake the sense memory of his skin, the smell of him -

Smell is a potent memory trigger -

 _The smell is familiar_ -

Jack’s voice floats across the room. “Go back, Doctor.”

Not without questions, not without _answers_. “What is this?”

“Just walk away,” Jack orders quietly, not turning from his work. “Turn around, and walk away.” With no visible change, he is transformed; the fire in him leaping high and bright, shields withdrawn so the Doctor can feel the immense sleeping stillness tugging him under, once again a thing to be feared. “Walk away,” he repeats. It reverberates in the Doctor’s bones and he very nearly does.

But he stands his ground. “No. I won’t.”

“I don’t want you to see this,” his Captain says, pausing but not looking around. “Please, Doctor. I’ll explain, what I can, but I can’t bear to think… that you might have been looking at me, remembering this.” Finally there is raw pain in his voice, and the Doctor shudders. “Please.”

“Someone should -” _bear witness_ , he is about to say, but Jack cuts him off.

“No one should. I may choose to forget it myself.” Finished with the tanks, he has moved on to a keypad on a locker, or refrigerator, or freezer; impossible to tell from where the Doctor is standing. He pushes buttons with increasing frustration, finally giving up and reaching into his pocket only to inexplicably produce his vortex manipulator. “I’d prefer you take yourself back to wherever you got rid of, of, _them_ ,” clearly not his first choice of descriptors, “wait a bit and wipe the last half hour of your memory. Give me enough time to… I don’t suppose you’d oblige?” Looking satisfied with his button pushing at last, Jack tries the keypad on the locker once more, then steps hastily back; self-contained incineration, perhaps.

Jack _had_ been trying to drive him away, the Doctor realises, as he watches, rooted to the spot. Horrified questions are bubbling up faster than he can give them voice, held back by the thought of the pain he will cause if he asks them. How long has he been here? _How many times_ has he been taken apart, the pieces studied as the whole reforms? The tanks look like cloning vats, and what purpose the reclamation system -? The disassembled components of the complex, distinctive scent of his lover are seeping into his brain, and if they settle there alongside the better memories, what Jack fears will always be true; the Doctor will remember this room.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers; taking it as an answer, Jack's shoulders fall. “Will you still tell me… something? Later?”

Finally Jack turns to look at him, still stern and withdrawn but his face is softened by tentative hope. “I will. Will you, really? It's a terrible thing to ask of you, I know.”

Swallowing harshly, the Doctor considers the terrible things he has asked of Jack. “Whatever you need,” he says, meaning it more than ever before.

-+-+-+-

It is an eerie place, deserted; corridors too wide, some with too few doors and some with too many, windows into darkness or strange noises behind blank facades. Experiments, Jack said, and - he had cut himself off before enumerating their sins further. The experimenters hadn’t been difficult to rout, in the event, apparently very used to the idea that a quick evacuation might be required. Taking their memories had been… distasteful. And unfortunate. But necessary. Some of them had been extraordinarily unhappy to see him.

Now in search of Jack, the Doctor’s footsteps echo as he makes his way toward that immortal flame. The smell of something burning drifts through the air faintly; maybe someone torching what they couldn't take, maybe some cathartic destruction on Jack’s part. The whole facility will be a smoking ruin soon enough.

His Captain is on the move, still searching for a centralised control center or data repository, and the Doctor falls into place beside him as he rounds a corner. “They’ll have off-site backups, I suppose?”

Jack watches him sidelong, an odd tension hitching his stride. “I would,” he says after a long moment, relaxing. “And as misguided and delusional as they are, they're not stupid.”

“More’s the pity.” Jack’s lips turn up at that and it is a beautiful sight. “They’re gone, Jack,” the Doctor says reassuringly, reaching out for his Captain’s hand. “Soon this place will be gone as well, and you can forget all about it.”

“Might do,” Jack replies, and falls silent. He doesn’t let go, though, and the Doctor is swept along in his wake, admiring the way the gathered timelines of this place spin away all at once, scattering around his favorite Fact. How every encounter with the Silence should go; but he knows it for wishful thinking.

After poking around the computers for a few minutes, Jack announces, “I’ve seen systems like this before. Just need to get them to copy a virus over to the repositories… Can you knock up something to take this place out?”

“‘Course I can. Maybe you forgot, I’m a genius.” Wriggling his fingers in thought, the Doctor looks around. “Hah! That’ll do.” He pulls out his screwdriver and dives under a console on the opposite side of the room from Jack. “Yell if the lights go out.”

Jack rolls his eyes. “Mad, is what you are.”

“You love it,” the Doctor mumbles around the wires currently occupying his mouth.

“Yeah,” his Captain breathes, barely audible even to a Time Lord’s sensitive hearing. “Yeah, I do.” Closing his eyes briefly, storing the moment away carefully in memory, the Doctor busies himself with the destruction of this place of nightmares.

When he resurfaces, trailing wires from the improvised detonator in his hand, Jack is grinning predatorily, muttering at the screen. The Doctor is fairly certain he heard, “Doctor, _who?_ ”

“What?”

“Oh,” says Jack darkly, still grinning, “Just leaving a calling card. Use _me_ , will they.” He types for another minute, then with a flourish of fingers spins around. “Fifteen minutes until another backup, then we can cash this teapot. You have -” He laughs as the Doctor holds up his detonator. “You and your buttons.”

“Love a good button,” the Doctor agrees happily. He hadn’t found anything red to use, oddly, even in his pockets, but purple will do nicely. Wrinkling his nose as he peers down at Jack, he adds, “Idioms of the future are odd.”

“Idioms of any time are odd. You avoid them; I live with them. Pull up,” he says, gesturing to another seat. The Doctor sits down, which is probably what Jack meant. Laughter gone, Jack stares at the floor, rubbing his hands slowly. He has his vortex manipulator back, somehow; the Doctor is sure it had been missing. He must have found it before they met up. “I… this all happened because I trusted the wrong people,” he says, eventually. “You know they’re associated with the Papal Mainframe. Easy enough to put a different face forward; I didn’t know until I was well stuck that this was your Silence. They just wanted to hurt you, and I gave them - I nearly gave them everything. I wanted to know… there were things I needed to find out. I built my own prison, and it was a good one.” The Doctor reaches out and lays a hand over Jack’s, hoping to comfort, but Jack just glances up at him with a dry laugh. “That’s not the half of it, Doctor, I had to _cooperate_ by the end… I couldn’t risk them spending too much effort on ways to silence me. If I hadn’t been able to warn you… It could have been so much worse."

“Jack,” the Doctor says, holding tight. Protecting him for how long now, and protecting him still? “How long?”

Jack shakes his head. “I’m not answering that. There’s been very little here it would benefit anyone to know; nothing at all that will help the Silence, but they would have kept trying. What I wanted to know, and what is helpful - and please try not to think about it more than you have to - is that I can’t be used as infinite feedstock. Every time I die and revive, there’s… you probably know this better than anyone. There’s a little hiccup in reality, and there I am, _me_ again. Maybe it takes a little while to get it all back in the right order, but everything that was a part of me before I died, however scattered, is a part of me again. No infinitely increasing organic matter in the universe. Stop,” he is watching the Doctor’s face as he considers exactly what testing went into this conclusion. “It is _worth it_ , to know that. I needed to know that.” He doesn’t let the Doctor ask anything. “I won’t answer your questions. I won’t show you… anything. I won’t tell you what else they did. This is the end of it. I need you to accept that.”

The fear and hope on his face is heartswrenching; the Doctor can’t bear to cause his Captain any more pain today. He nods. “Whatever you need.”

Closing his eyes, Jack bows his head. “Thank you,” he whispers, and takes a deep breath. “Seven more minutes,” he says then, looking up. “What do we do for seven more minutes?”

“The Jack I know would have suggestions,” the Doctor tries, attempting to discard their previous topic but not entirely sure it is a reasonable gambit with this man; immensely older and so recently hurt, so willing to use himself up to the last dregs at need.

His Captain raises a brow, face transformed as he smiles. “ _You_ are not medically cleared for strenuous activity, Doctor. Hasn’t been but hours since you couldn’t wriggle your toes. You keep your suggestions until you’ve had a good night’s sleep.”

“My suggestions! If they’re mine it’s only from spending too much time around _you_ , Captain.”

Looking smug, Jack shrugs. “Can’t blame me for being a good influence.” The Doctor sputters, and Jack grins, and things are alright again, for now.

When time is up Jack enters a quick query into the computer, then stands up looking satisfied. “Cry havoc,” he says viciously, “and let slip the dogs of war.”

The Doctor laughs, willing, very willing, to take up vengeance against this foe. “Endless, bitter war, she said. I’ll end it piece by piece if I have to. Ready to run?”

Jack gives him that big damn hero grin. “Always,” he replies, and the Doctor pushes the purple button, and they do.

“Will you stay a while?” he asks back in the TARDIS, slumped wearily in a jumpseat, overtaxed by a day that began so explosively. “It… wasn't easy for you, I know.”

But his Captain just shakes his head, eyes warm, watching him from where he is leaning on the console. “No, but thank you. I’ll be alright. I hope it doesn't hurt you, but I have someone to go home to; and you have someone you've promised to return to. Go get that sleep, and everything else.” He steps forward, reaching out to push the Doctor's hair back from his face gently, lets his hand linger, and the Doctor leans into it, suddenly realising he has been far too long without touch.

Closing his eyes, he nods; that suggestion, coming from Jack, carries the certainty of timelines. “I will, then. Jack, I'd never -” he opens his eyes again, searches his Captain's face, “I'd _never_ begrudge you any happiness. Go home, and enjoy all your years together.”

“I do my best,” Jack says, smiling at some private joke.

“Which is very good indeed,” the Doctor agrees.

-+-+-+-

Jack isn’t waiting for him when he arrives on Bellacosa; how should he be, when he didn’t know when or whether the Doctor would be returning? He isn’t in the house at all.

It has been a long time since the Doctor was here last, for him, and he wanders, touching the well-known furniture gently, straightening the books Jack insists on leaving in piles, setting his palm against the bedroom window as he looks out at the mountains rising to the sky. His refuge, here, his respite on the long path he has chosen, to cast his shadow out over eternity before the spring of his life runs dry. A penance of sorts, because it does cause him pain to witness what Jack must go through; atonement as well, even if forgiveness was given freely and absolution can never be reached. But also an act of hope, he has come to understand, an act of faith in the universe, in Time, in his Captain; in the human girl who changed it all with a thought. He's seen it all now, he's _been_ it all, false god and failed god, and still he believes in her. “There’s so much more to see,” he tells the mountains, a fact Jack has reminded him of more than once.

Exhausted, he sits on the bed, pulls his boots off, lays his coat across the foot. Curling up on his side, he pulls the blankets over him and waits for Jack's return.

The Doctor wakes to Jack slipping into bed behind him, warm and solid, whirling timelines resolving into clarity as he is gathered into the arms of his favorite Fact. “Jack,” he sighs sleepily, “I wish I could give you a happy life.”

Pressing his face to the Doctor’s hair, Jack swallows thickly and doesn’t reply immediately. “I’m happy now,” he says eventually, voice slightly unsteady.

“You’re crying.”

“So I am,” Jack agrees. Arms tight around the Doctor, he kisses his neck. “Go back to sleep.” Safe and secure, comforting and comforted in this timeless space, the Doctor does.

-+-+-+-

 


	17. The long fall

Chewing on his fingers absently, the Doctor stands in the doorway, looking out. After all the times he has found Jack in space, he could hardly help but wonder: what if he didn't get there in time? Bodies are not meant to drift in space forever; they are meant to fall, eventually, to return their elements to the great furnaces of creation.

He had never wanted to find out. He had never wanted to find out a lot of things he knows now.

The planet below him turns, a hazy jade marble, indistinct bands of weather striating its surface, inasmuch as it has a surface. A thousand kilometres below what the eye can see, the increasing pressure forces the atmosphere into a supercritical state, flowing like a gas but dissolving like a liquid; dissolving Jack, if he makes it down that far. There are so many other options before that.

“You’re sure he’s down there?” But the TARDIS seems certain. “Well.” He turns away, closes the door carefully. “Well, then.” Crosses to the console, runs his hands gently over the controls. His imagination is getting the better of him, perhaps; after all he’s seen, he can only expect the worst here. “You can find… something?” There must be something to find, intermittently at least; the universe insists on Jack existing _as Jack_ , not piecewise, not as constituent atoms smeared across a planet. It is one of the few things the Doctor has been, ultimately, relieved to find out, that Jack is no infinite wellspring of manna; he cannot be used to feed a multitude, he cannot be rendered down to valuable organics again and again to seed a planet.

He is still staring at the lever. It has been a long time since he’s lost his nerve like this; he has always made a point of looking the universe in the eye, even if he has often run from what he sees. Running isn’t an option, with Jack. He pulls the lever.

What the TARDIS finds would be only barely recognisable as human, if not for the eternal flame inside Jack, unmistakable to a Time Lord’s eyes. Stripped of clothes, stripped of skin, _torn limb from limb_ , he has rarely seen a better use for the phrase - Jack is still alive. Eyes blasted pits, breath harsh through lipless mouth, he makes no sound, does not attempt movement.

“Jack,” the Doctor whispers, staring in horror; then louder, “Jack!” in case he can hear, people in extremis can often still hear he knows. But his ears must surely be ruptured. Reaching blindly back for the comfort of his third heart, the Doctor's hand comes down on a hypospray where he was expecting empty console. “Yes, quite right, old girl,” he says, bringing it forward, but stops in mid step as he looks at it. “This will stop his heart!” That constant, indomitable heart, the accompaniment to his best nights, each beat counting down one more moment of time passing him by. “He would never ask this of me,” the Doctor pleads; she pushes at him with an unusual note of urgency. “But he would want to,” he agrees quietly, despairing.

The Cloister bell tolls, once.

“Truly?” Startled, the Doctor looks around for the threat. “If - if I don't _kill him?_ I don't understand -” but Jack's bright beacon is strangely clouded, his timeline indistinct in a way that should never be, that is wrong, _wrong_. The Doctor drops to his knees beside his Captain, reaches out, hesitates, then as gently as he can, lays his fingers against the side of Jack's ruined face. _Jack?_ he thinks, but no one answers. His shields are down, obliterated, and all that fills his mind is an immense, howling storm and falling, falling forever. The agony he must be in is gone, lost or hidden, his memories inaccessible, his mind cracked open and poured out - how had he been _conscious_ for so much of it?

Shaking, the Doctor pulls his hand away. To stop the long fall, then, in hopes of finding something left of Jack at the bottom; he fumbles with the hypospray, sets it to his Captain's neck.

Nine hundred and seventy five.

-+-+-+-

Three hours later, the Fact of Jack reasserts itself, the blinding flare illuminating the uncomfortable wobble at the centre in harsh relief. Not safe yet. He has all his limbs now, most of his skin; he should be able to hear, if there is anyone inside to listen.

“You’re safe now,” the Doctor begins, hesitant to touch yet but determined to do _something_. “Jack, you’re safe in the TARDIS, you’re in the infirmary and I’m right here. I won’t leave you. You don’t have all your skin back on yet, so I’m going to sedate you… I don't know if you can hear me at all, really, I know there's something of you left in there, hiding away, but you needn't come back till the pain is gone, Jack. I know sometimes it’s an anchor for you, but maybe not this time, not after -” He cuts off his babbling, wringing his hands anxiously. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

Sinking onto the seat at the bench, the Doctor watches as skin continues to cover fingers terribly exposed, creeping over like frost, gradually thickening; as eyelids reform to cover the blankly staring eyes; as the beloved face of his Captain gains full definition. This is the easy part, he knows.

He keeps Jack sedated until no damage remains at all, to his body at least, then carefully carries him to the room they shared so long ago Jack probably doesn't even remember it anymore. It is a wonder Jack remembers _him_ ; the Doctor still can't tell exactly how Jack's timeline translates to lived time, but he knows the man in his arms has lived many thousands of years. Regardless, it is a place in which he has nursed Jack back to health before, and he will do it again.

 _Must_ do it again, it seems, to prevent a great deal of trouble.

“It's not fair,” he says quietly, laying his Captain on the bed, smoothing the red duvet over him, “that so much should depend on you. That every time the worst happens, you have to get back up and go on.” Combing his regrown hair from his forehead with careful fingertips, the Doctor leans down to kiss his forehead. “I would fix you if I could, Jack, now I would. I'm sorry I can't.” When he brushes lightly against Jack’s mind again, he nearly weeps in relief to find the howling storm replaced by the singing of the TARDIS. The long fall is over, and perhaps she can help Jack remember that there can be a welcoming home at the end.

He talks, a never-ending flow of words, incessant; finally a use for that gift of gab, the chatter that has rarely deserted him since the loss of Gallifrey, constantly reaching out into the silence and hoping for someone to reach back. No one does, now. He narrates to Jack as he washes him, or putters about in the room, or straps on a new saline pack, or takes it away. Reads to him when there is nothing to narrate, and when he must sleep, or leave lest he drive himself mad, he knows the TARDIS is singing to his Captain, _safe_ and _solid_ and _home_.

-+-+-+-

“But when Aspen spoke to the wind,” he reads, from a book of fairy tales the TARDIS set out for him, “the wind answered. It flew about her, and shook and rattled and shivered her leaves, and in their voices its words took shape. ‘Never,’ the wind said, and ‘Onward,’ and it could not stop for more. Ash asked -”

Jack's hand in his twitches, and the Doctor holds his breath for a moment, holds tight to fingers so long still, but Jack makes no further response.

“Ash asked what the wind had answered,” he continues, “as he might barely catch at Aspen's quick speech in a slight breeze and could not hope to understand the wind, but she could not explain. She wished still to take flight.

“Elder, who was used to listening to the wind, even if it never spoke to him, called to Ash: 'Never, it said. We must strive all our lives to reach from earth to sky, and then in the end must only fail, and fall. What of beauty can I possibly make?’ And Ash mourned his friends’ dreams with them, even if he himself was content to be well-rooted.

“Willow, who spoke with the wind but looked ever to the earth, tried to console them. ‘It is the way of things,’ she said, ‘to rise and to fall. The sun and the moon do so each day and there is nothing of greater beauty in the world.’ Elder remembered that he, too, loved the sun and moon, and was content; but Aspen loved the bright wide sky and the wind she wove into fine songs and swift dances, and would not be consoled.”

Jack’s fingers tighten in his, unmistakably, and the Doctor leans over and kisses his forehead, shifts down in the bed to press against his side, to weigh him down, to ground him.

“The wind returned, as it must, and in answer to Aspen's lamentations blew so fearsomely that her quaking, living leaves were sundered stem from branch. She was myriad, all dancing together but each alone.” The Doctor's voice catches as he reads the next line. “No tree before had died so many deaths. Yew, she of earth who cared nothing for the wind, looked on, shaking her branches slowly.”

“Some of us,” Jack whispers the next line for him, “were never meant to fly.”

“Jack,” the Doctor whispers in return, voice stolen by immense, crushing relief. Turning his face to his Captain's hair, he breathes, and breathes, and waits for his anchor to solidify, for his Fact to shine forth with illuminating brightness.

But it doesn't.

“Jack?” he whispers again, afraid of too many things to name.

“One more line,” Jack says, with obvious effort.

He doesn't need to pick the book up from where it fell to remember. “Aspen’s rooted trunk could only watch and never remember, but for those moments, she was beloved of the sky.”

Jack doesn’t speak again that day.

-+-+-+-

“I fell,” Jack says, staring at the ceiling. “I fell, further than I've ever fallen before.” His voice is quiet, barely more than a whisper, and inflectionless. It sounds worryingly as though he is narrating a dream he is still caught up in. “I burned sometimes, burned and burned and it never stops, the burning, it never stops…” Still staring at the ceiling or beyond it, there is no expression on his face but tears are dripping from the corners of his eyes, and the Doctor holds his hand tightly, tightly.

It is like this for days, Jack silent or speaking by turns, without regard to whether the Doctor is there. He rarely responds to anything the Time Lord says, but pulls away violently when the Doctor tries to ascertain his mental state. Eventually giving up, the Doctor leaves his Captain and his TARDIS to their communion and tries to content himself with meeting physical needs. Jack will sip at broth if it is placed to his lips, but not eat; he lays more peacefully when weighed down by heavy blankets.

He falls into memories sometimes, and the Doctor listens to scattered moments of his life, sometimes silent, sometimes asking questions. Gradually Jack begins to answer, and the Doctor is immensely heartened, at first. “What did you find?” he prompts, when Jack falls silent midway through a memory.

“Seeds,” Jack replies, “gengineered seeds, that's all. Wildflowers, mostly. Ecoterrorism as planetary art installation. I let them go… I don't regret it. The whole continent looks like… Do you remember when we went to the Basilica, on Choreopter, Doctor? Just like that -” but everything feels terribly brittle all of a sudden.

“When was that?” the Doctor interrupts gently.

“Not _that_ long ago - you can't have forgotten. Every surface covered in flowers, vines and bushes and rooftop gardens, hanging in curtains from the lines like enormous brush strokes…” Can't have forgotten, indeed, for it never happened - never will happen - never _can_ happen. He'll go back and wake Jack on Ophicche before his time is up, but he certainly won't be sightseeing with this Jack, so far removed from his proper timeline.

All the Doctor's newfound relief drains away as he realises Jack is not recounting memories, but is instead lost in delusions, still completely broken from reality. It seems a shame to take him from such a beautiful place, and the Doctor wishes fervently, hopelessly, that it were not necessary. But reality needs the Captain, it seems. So much is built against his steady support.

“Jack,” he says, trying to be gentle but firmly real, “I have never been to the Basilica. We've never gone there.”

Gaze still lost in the rising geometry of the ceiling, Jack says dismissively, “Of course we did. You said you'd never been, so we went.” Then he smiles, and there's a secret in his smile that is meant for two and it breaks the Doctor's hearts that he can't share it. “I'm going to be insulted if you've forgotten _that_ …”

Propping himself up on his elbow, the Doctor reaches over and grasps Jack's chin lightly, coaxes him to turn his head. That disquieting uncertainty is still there where there ought only be unquestionable stability; the Doctor tries to hide his unease. As Jack's eyes focus on his face, his smile slowly disappears. “We never went to the Basilica, Jack.”

“Oh,” his Captain says, and “No,” and his deep blue eyes, unfathomable as knotted rope had found the sea, slide closed as the stillness of ages overtakes him.

The Doctor stops reading him fairy tales, just in case.

-+-+-+-

Jack speaks less after that, although he seems awake and lucid most of the time. “My vortex manipulator is gone,” he says three days later, resurfacing again from his internal retreat.

“Yes,” the Doctor agrees. He is sitting in a chair he's pulled near the bed; it doesn't seem to help either of them for him to stay too close. “Irretrievably, if you were wearing it when you… fell.” He swallows sickly, remembering. “You hadn't wrists at all, when I found you.”

“I breathe,” Jack says, in what seems like a non sequitur. “When there’s anything to breathe, when I can inhale, I do. And I could, there.” Nevermind then; he is following the conversation perfectly well. “Tossed about like a leaf in the storm…” He trails off. “You should have left me.”

Not sure he has heard the quiet words correctly, the Doctor repeats incredulously, “I should have _left you?_ Are you mad?”

Jack’s lips stretch in a parody of a smile. “Probably, yes; at least I should be. How else am I to spend my time? You have no idea… Sometimes I think a black hole is the only answer that makes any sense. I’ll try it, maybe.” He is attempting levity, but it is betrayed by the bleakness in his eyes; this is the _maybe_ of the imminent suicide, intention presented as absurdity, truth offered up as unlikely distraction.

This, the Doctor suddenly understands, is the breaking point, this decision. This is why the uncertainty lingers even as Jack begins to recover his mind. “Please don’t,” he says without thought, and then doesn't know how to continue. He can't bear to place the weight of the universe on shoulders so close to collapse. “Please don't,” he repeats, but it comes out muffled because he is chewing on his fingers unconsciously again, damn his hands. He clasps them firmly between his knees.

Jack is watching him pensively, propped up against the pillows, nearly too weak to sit on his own now; he still won't eat.

Attempting to convince without explaining, the Doctor shifts forward in his chair, resists reaching out for a hand that won't rise to meet his. “I recall you said once, you'll never see Time like I do. Please trust me that a black hole is not the answer. I know it's bad right now, Jack, but it's… I could help, if you'd let me in?” But Jack shakes his head. “Stasis, then? It's not a billion-year solution, but it has helped in the past.”

Over the next few minutes Jack becomes increasingly agitated, shifting from side to side, tossing his head. His face changes from thoughtful to distressed, and he makes several aborted movements of his arms that the Doctor finally recognises as the beginning of that intensely familiar motion to consult his vortex manipulator. “Organic memory,” he mutters finally, sounding disgusted, and shakes his head again. “Can't remember, can't remember the last time…” After a further moment of thought, he concludes, “Doesn’t matter.” He recites a string of space-time coordinates, and adds the decidedly odd instructions, “If I’m already there, skip ahead ten days until I’m not.”

“This is…?”

Jack settles himself back into the bed, meets the Doctor’s eyes. “Not a black hole. They'll take care of me. Don't stick around.”

“ _I_ can take care of you, Jack -” the Doctor protests, hurt by the dismissal; unwilling to let Jack go in such a state.

“You’ll just have to trust me, on this. I'm sorry. I can't… I'm barely holding it together, Doctor, I'll spend a long time in stasis. You've done your part. Thank you.” He closes his eyes, and the Doctor can't bring himself to argue with a man so diminished.

He understands at least slightly better when they arrive, because he can indeed feel the Fixed Point that is Jack outside the TARDIS. It takes three hops forward to miss him, and when the Doctor pokes his head out he is greeted by someone he guesses is a medic, based on the long green coat. It’s a bit of a clash with the dull orange skin.

“Doctor,” they’re saying, “what hap -” Then they blink, pause, stare at the Doctor for a moment, and start again. “Sorry. Erm. You’ve brought the Captain?”

Being recognised is decidedly odd - so many questions he _can't ask_ , it's maddening! - but he puts it aside for now. “What is this place?”

“The Captain's private medical facility,” the medic answers, frowning. “Why are you here if you don't know?”

Stepping from the TARDIS, the Doctor closes the door behind him and crosses his arms. “In no state for lengthy explanations, is he? _If I'm already there skip ahead ten days._ Oooh, this is lovely, actually,” he interrupts himself, pulling out the sonic screwdriver and prowling around. “Didn't spare any expense here, did he. I'm the Doctor, by the way, but you knew that.” Spinning around, he tries on a charming smile. “Who did you say you were?”

“I didn't.” They stare at each other until the medic rolls their eyes. “Lieutenant Tai Makov. Are you going to bring the Captain out, or shall I go get him?”

Ignoring the latter suggestion completely, the Doctor resumes poking around. “Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant Tai Makov. He's always had a weakness for a person in uniform… This is really, quite - what in Time does he need a glial rebonder for? He can just grow a new brain, you know. It's like he just bought the entire catalogue.”

Lieutenant Makov is starting to look unwillingly amused. “What's a - nevermind. He did warn me about you,” they lament, sotto voce. “I'm not in the habit of killing my patients, Doctor, no matter how expediently it might solve the complaint. Bad habit to get into. And he does occasionally bring other people here. If you're quite satisfied…?”

“I am _not_ quite satisfied.” Rounding on them, the Doctor tucks away his screwdriver and advances, index finger held before him. “I have a man in my care who has been through hell, more hell than you can imagine, and I’m supposed to just leave him here, no questions asked? Convince me.”

“Hardly _no questions_ ,” the lieutenant says, but they are drowned out by Jack’s voice.

“Do I have to convince you, Doctor?”

Whirling around, the Doctor cries, “Jack! You shouldn’t be up.” He starts forward to support him but Jack's medic is already there; he watches, stricken, as his Captain departs, leaning on someone else, leaving him behind.

-+-+-+-

It's no life for a Time Lord, he thinks sometimes, dogging a human's footsteps, begging pathetically for scraps of attention, remnants of affection. Where is his Prydonian pride?

The same place it has always been, he thinks at others; he has never had any. And the fact remains - well, the Fact remains. He is doing the universe’s work, ensuring that the centre will hold, and what else have generations of Time Lords before him professed to hold as their highest goals, but continuity and stability? They would laugh if they could see him now, the chaos-sowing renegade, and he would laugh right back.

But they can’t, and never will, and he is running out of time to fix anything. He would be better served finding something fixable - and then he throws the lever again; habit, just habit, he tells himself, but he knows better. Still, he can’t bear to face Jack again yet. He doesn’t stay to talk.

On he goes, and on, invisible meddler; but Jack catches him at it again eventually, of course.

-+-+-+-

“Doctor,” Jack says gently, “you need to stop this. I don't know how long it's been for you, but however long, it's enough.”

He is not sure, right now, why it should matter how long. Day after day, he just goes on, trying to mitigate the unending string of horrors that Jack must be subject to for the life of the universe. Leaning wearily against the wall, he asks, “Do you want to know? How long.”

With a smile, Jack shakes his head. “Tell me if you like, but it's no business of mine. I don't even properly know how long it's been for me, though I mostly live linearly anymore. But it's not what you're thinking, Doctor. My life, it's not like that. You're only seeing the worst parts, all at once, over and over. But in between, it's… life. It's just life. You visit, but I _live_ here.” He draws the Doctor into his arms, and the stability of him is so deep it feels like touching Time itself. The Doctor doesn't know what to do, anymore. It had all seemed so clear, so obvious, and it had suited well his immense propensity for self-flagellation; what is he to do, if he stops? “You wouldn't believe the stories that have followed me around… the avenging angel who destroys anyone who crosses me, the impossible disappearing acts.” He holds the Doctor tight against him. “But it's time to lay down the standard, Doctor. It's time to give up the guilt, and forgive yourself. It's time to go home.”

Closing his eyes, the Doctor exhales carefully, swallows through the tightening in his throat. He hadn't been expecting the rejection, but if he had, he wouldn't have expected it to hurt so much. He has been told to go away before, after all. But this seems so final. “You said,” he says, into Jack's shoulder, holding on tightly to the back of his shirt, “that no matter how much you changed…” he pauses, willing Jack to finish his sentence as he so often has, to reaffirm this promise for him, but his Captain is silent. “You said there would always be a place for me, with you.”

Pushing him away, Jack sets a finger under his chin and tilts it up to see his face. It must look bad, because Jack gives him a heartsbreaking smile and, taking his face in both hands, kisses him gently. “There always is,” he says with searing honesty, shaking his head, “but it's not here. I'm still waiting for you, Doctor, a long, long time ago.” He lets go, forever. “Go home to your Jack.”

-+-+-+-

 

_I did my best, it wasn't much_  
_I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch_  
_I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you_  
_And even though it all went wrong_  
_I'll stand before the Lord of Song_  
_With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah_  
  
_( -Hallelujah, by Leonard Cohen)_

 


	18. Epilogue

With a vague sense of déjà vu, Jack drifts toward awareness out of the enveloping rain. There is a familiar singing, a presence he will always recognize; _good morning, beautiful_ , he thinks to her. Then he feels cool lips press against his and he remembers. His fairy tale, just for once coming true. He opens his eyes.

The Doctor is immaculately dressed as ever, but he looks washed out and somehow dimmed, frayed around the edges. There is no sign of the nausea or discomfort at contact that Jack has grown used to; he looks instead strangely tentative, wondering, as if… as if, Jack thinks, confused, he were beholding a miracle.

Somewhat concerned, he raises an eyebrow; the Doctor draws away to let him speak. “Are you alright?”

“Me?” His lover looks genuinely surprised. “Of course I'm alright. I'm fine, everything's fine. I just… missed you. Been a while.” Then he smiles. “Good morning, sleeping beauty. That's what I meant to say.”

Jack reaches up and reels him back in for another kiss. It was just yesterday he left, but it was a very, very long night.

Pulling himself out of the stasis pod with the Doctor's help, Jack shakes his head and then his arms and stamps his feet, trying to get things back into working order. “Well I've had a hell of a nap. What have you been up to?”

“Oh, this and that.” The Doctor flaps his hands aimlessly, and there is a faint blush rising in his cheeks. “Just tying up some loose ends, you know, saving the day and all that.”

Typical answer, but on the other hand, the blush is amusing. “Tying up? You've been back to see me, then? Or was that River?” Now he is sputtering and flustered, which is much better.

“Jack! You're, you're just _impossible_.”

“So you've said. Me, then? You must have done Fordering Station now.” Jack takes pity at the violent red consuming his lover's face and holds out his hand. The Doctor takes it willingly, but with none of the urgency Jack finds he was expecting. “Well, come on then. Wouldn’t want to keep the old girl waiting.”

Back in the TARDIS, Jack looks around. Nothing looks different. “You traveling with anyone?”

“No, no. No time for that.” The Doctor continues on toward the console, long legs taking him quickly although he is in no hurry. Jack watches, just enjoying the novelty of _not being tired_. Still stiff, and he feels like he needs a comprehensive stretch, but he had been numb with fatigue when he went into stasis and the lack of it is such a relief he almost feels he could fly. He follows the Doctor and leans against a railing.

“How long has it been, for you?”

Casting a glance over his shoulder, the Doctor is more honestly evasive than Jack was expecting. “I'm not answering that. More than a year.”

Jack does some quick arithmetic, based on his memories of encountering the Doctor in his past. “You've done Fordering, and Hysskp, then?” The Doctor nods, turning to him. “And the others. My itinerant rescuer.” And other things; what Jack knows of easily fits inside a year. The Doctor has a tentative smile on his face, and Jack wants badly to fix this unwonted hesitance. “Well, now you know why.”

Startled, the Doctor asks, “Why, what?”

“What you asked me, before. Why did I come with you, at the beginning. Why did I follow you down that path. Why am I yours. You've earned that of me.”

More emotions pass across the Doctor’s face than Jack can track, then, as he stares silently back, one hand rising before he clenches his fingers into a fist and drops it back to his side. He shakes his head. “No,” he says quietly, “not yet. But I will, Jack, I’m done with…” Shaking his head again, he starts over. “There’s so much more to see, you said. Come see it with me?”

Not at all the reassurance he had meant to provide, it seems; whatever the Doctor has been doing, it has changed him. But perhaps they can seek out a bit of joy in life now, together, before he has to let his lover go to do battle with fate. Pushing away from the railing, Jack circles the console, letting his fingers brush against it; the TARDIS certainly seems happy to have him back. He raises his hand to cup his lover’s cheek; the Doctor leans into the touch with that same look of wonder in his eyes and Jack feels arms wind around him, holding him close, holding on tight. “Yes,” he says, “always.”

-+-+-+-

 


	19. Epilogue 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Thank you so much to everyone reading! I hope you have enjoyed the trip. This is not, by far, the last story I have to tell in this continuity, and if there is any particular part you want to read please don't hesitate to ask._

The man who is, from time to time, still called Jack Harkness stands staring at the place where the TARDIS disappeared, carrying away the terribly young and hurting Doctor, for some time. Then he turns and calls out, “Did you stop, when I told you to?”

“Yes,” the voice of his occasional companion drifts back to him. “That should be the end of it. How did you know I was here? I brought her in silent.” The Doctor sounds a bit cross.

“She’s never silent, to me.” It is something often forgotten, down the long years.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry I kept at it for so long. I wasn’t well.” Coming closer, the Doctor’s voice is matter-of-fact; just a reiteration of previous apologies, at this point.

Jack gathers his friend into his arms. “It’s alright, now.” In this incarnation the Doctor fits easily, all that energy compressed into a compact body, and they both quite like it that way. “I have loved you for ten thousand years,” he sings softly, swaying back and forth a bit, “I'll love you for ten thousand more.”

Laughing, the Doctor stretches up against him to press a brief kiss against the corner of his mouth. “Where else could I find a promise like that?”

“I'm the best there is.” Jack grins.

“Putting up with me this long? I'd call you a saint…” the Doctor grins impishly back. “If you didn't spend all your time trying to get to hell.”

-+-+-+-

 


End file.
